But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.

What I believe to be true I must therefore preserve. What seems to me so obvious, even against me, I must support.

Knowing what [Christ] knew , knowing all about mankind--ah! who would have thought that the crime is not so much to make others die, but to die oneself--confronted day and night with his innocent crime, it became too difficult to go on. It was better to get it over with, to not defend himself, to die, in order not to be the only one to have survived, and to go elsewhere, where, perhaps, he would be supported.

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

At the age of 40, having ordered meat very rare in restaurants all his life, he realized he actually liked it medium and not at all rare.

We are not certain, we are never certain. If we were we could reach some conclusions, and we could, at last, make others take us seriously.

I was born poor and without religion, under a happy sky, feeling harmony, not hostility, in nature. I began not by feeling torn, but in plenitude.