It's not the struggle that makes us artists, but Art that makes us struggle.

It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.

A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.

A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.

People have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living. In truth, there is no necessary common measure between these two judgments.

The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their very duration great misfortunes are monotonous.