In our well-policed society we recognize that an illness is serious from the fact that we don't dare speak of it directly.

Freedom is the right to never have to lie.

I sometimes need to write things which I cannot completely control but which therefore prove that what is in me is stronger than I am.

Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when revolutions will have need of beauty.

I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.