We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

To cut short this question of the law of retaliation, we must note that even in its primitive form it can operate only between two individuals of whom one is absolutely innocent and the other absolutely guilty. The victim, to be sure, is innocent. But can the society that is supposed to represent the victim lay claim to innocence?

For those of us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity.

what doesn't kill you make you stronger and stronger

Sometimes at night I would sleep open-eyed underneath a sky dripping with stars. I was alive then.

If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

What made me run away was doubtless not so much the fear of settling down, but of settling down permanently in something ugly.