I am too much in love with my lies and hypocrisies not to confess them fervently.

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion; in order to serve others better, one has to hold them at a distance for a time. But where can one find the solitude necessary to vigor, the deep breath in which the mind collects itself and courage gauges its strength? There remain big cities.

Healthy people have a natural skill of avoiding feverish eyes.

In short, they were gambling on their luck, and luck is not to be coerced.

Moreover, most people, assuming they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not combine them naively with a thoroughly immoral way of living, had replace normal religious practice by more or less extravagant superstitions.

In art, rebellion is consummated and perpetuated in the act of real creation, not in criticism or commentary.

He was expressing his certainty that my appeal would be granted, but I was carrying the burden of a sin from which I had to free myself. According to him, human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything. I pointed out it was the former that had condemned me.