Still, obviously, one can't be sensible all the time.

When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.

You know very well that I no longer think. I am far too intelligent for that.

For instance, I never complained that my birthday was overlooked; people were even surprised, with a touch of admiration, by my discretion on this subject. But the reason for my disinterestedness was even more discreet: I longed to be forgotten in order to be able to complain to myself... Once my solitude was thoroughly proved, I could surrender to the charms of a virile self-pity.

I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

A true masterpiece does not tell everything.