If the only significant history of human thought were to be written, it would have to be the history of its successive regrets and its impotences.

That must be wonderful; I have no idea of what it means.

One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.

Wandering seemed no more than the happiness of an anxious man.

He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from which I had to free myself. According to him, human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I pointed out it was the former that had condemned me.

I have never been able, really, to regret anything in all my life. I have always been far much too absorbed in the present moment or the immediate future to think back.

You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters — all that matters, really is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women , art, success — is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.