By giving too much importance to fine actions one may end by paying an indirect but powerful tribute to evil, because in so doing one implies that such fine actions are only valuable because they are rare, and that malice or indifference are far more common motives in the actions of men.

I longed to be forgotten in order to be able to complain to myself.

A work of art is a confession.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.

I can negate everything of that part of me that lives on vague nostalgias, except this desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion. I can refute everything in this world surrounding me that offends or enraptures me, except this chaos, this sovereign chance and this divine equivalence which springs from anarchy. I don't know whether this world has meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.