We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

Imagination offers people consolation for what they cannot be, and humor for what they actually are.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.

In order to speak about all and to all, one has to speak of what all know and of the reality common to us all. The sea, rains, necessity, desire, the struggle against death... these are things that unite us all.