We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity.

Sometimes, from beyond the skycrapers, the cry of a tugboat finds you in your insomnia, and you remember that this desert of iron and cement is an island.

Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

To remain a man in today's world, one must have not only unfailing energy and unwavering intensity, one must also have a little luck.

So the thing that bothered me most was that the condemned man had to hope the machine would work the first time.

A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.