You know, [women] do not really condemn any weakness: rather, they try to humiliate or disarm our strengths. That is why women arethe reward, not of the warrior, but of the criminal.

Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives... inside ourselves.

...the habit of despair is worse than despair itself.

Nature is a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is possible but everything is given.

When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears.