God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves.

Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.

I was comfortable in all, I admit, but at the same time, nothing satisfied me. Each joy made me seek another.

At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things.

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.

... I suppose that it is not so easy to go home and it takes a bit of time to make a son out of a stranger.

This absurd, godless world is, then, peopled with men who think clearly and have ceased to hope. And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator.