You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

The best revenge you can have on intellectuals is to be madly happy.

Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.

There is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom insight and life of each person who has known and loved it.

To feel absolutely right is the beginning of the end.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

And for all his life it would be kindness and love that made him cry, never pain or persecution, which on the contrary only reinforced his spirit and his resolution.