Without freedom, no art; art lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.

To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge.

I was tormented by my desire for a woman ... I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their faces and crowded with my desires.

Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.

The first concern of any dictatorship is, consequently, to subjugate both labor and culture.

I understood, by dint of digging into my memories, that modesty helped me to shine, humility helped me to triumph and virtue to oppress.