All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.

Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

Again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death. ("The Plague")

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion; in order to serve others better, one has to hold them at a distance for a time. But where can one find the solitude necessary to vigor, the deep breath in which the mind collects itself and courage gauges its strength? There remain big cities.

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.