People don't love each other at our age, Marthe—they please each other, that's all. Later on, when you're old and impotent, you can love someone. At our age, you just think you do. That's all it is.

No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

One plays at being immortal and after a few weeks one doesn't even know whether or not one can hang on till the next day.

Just as all thought, and primarily that of non-signification, signifies something, so there is no art that has no signification.

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.

Whoever gives nothing, has nothing. The greatest misfortune is not to be unloved, but not to love.

One cannot be a part-time nihilist.