Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it.

Intelligence in chains loses in lucidity what it gains in intensity.

I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.

What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me - that I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my conditions?

From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.

Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.