We have to live and let live in order to create what we are.

It is in the thick of calamity that one gets hardened to the truth - in other words, to silence.

Every writer, big or small, needs to say or write that the genius is always hissed at by his contemporaries. Naturally, this is not true, it happens only occasionally and often by chance. But this need within the writer is enlightening.

The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom.

When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling. Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Beware of those who say: "I know this too well to be able to express it." For if they cannot do so, this is because they don't know it or because out of laziness they stopped at the outer crust.