Old women even forget how to love their sons. The heart gets worn out, Monsieur.

I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.

I don't want to be a genius-I have enough problems just trying to be a man.

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

Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.

In fact, other people create for lack of power. I, on the other hand, do not need a work: I live.

For years I've wanted to live according to everyone else's morals. I've forced myself to live like everyone else, to look like everyone else. I said what was necessary to join together, even when I felt separate. And after all of this, catastrophe came. Now I wander amid the debris, I am lawless, torn to pieces, alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and to my infirmities. And I must rebuild a truth-after having lived all my life in a sort of lie.