Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?

stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves

The most exhausting effort in my life has been to suppress my own nature in order to make it serve my biggest plans.

To remain a man in today's world, one must have not only unfailing energy and unwavering intensity, one must also have a little luck.

Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about. In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.

My great idea is that we must forgive the Pope. First of all, he needs it more than anyone else. Besides, it is the only way of placing oneself above him.

In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.