If it adapts itself to what the majority of our society wants, art will be a meaningless recreation.

For ever, I shall be a stranger to myself.

Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and this is its whole secret.

I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

Have you no hope at all? And do you really live with the thought that when you die, you die, and nothing remains?" "Yes," I said.

I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.

I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.