“To think the way you do,” he said smiling, “you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope.” “On both, perhaps.”

The human heart has a tiresome tendency to label as fate only what crushes it. But happiness likewise, in its way, is without reason, since it is inevitable.

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.

Although it was the middle of winter, I finally realized that, within me, summer was inextinguishable.

At a certain level of suffering or injustice no one can do anything for anyone. Pain is solitary.

Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.

Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism.