Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.

In truth, I was so good at being a man, with such plenitude and simplicity, that I thought I was something of a superman.

What's natural is the microbe. All the rest-heath, integrity, purity (if you like)-is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

You know, [women] do not really condemn any weakness: rather, they try to humiliate or disarm our strengths. That is why women arethe reward, not of the warrior, but of the criminal.

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.