I sometimes need to write things which I cannot completely control but which therefore prove that what is in me is stronger than I am.

We can't do without dominating others or being served.... The essential thing, in sum, is being able to get angry without the other person being able to answer back.

The reasoning is classic in its clarity. If God does not exist, Kirilov is god. If God does not exist, Kirilov must kill himself. Kirilov must therefore kill himself to become god. That logic is absurd, but it is what is needed.

The nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments difficult to observe: refusal to lie about what we know, and resistance to oppression.

A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing.

Their guilt made me eloquent because I was not its victim.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. Society has but little connection with such beginnings. The worm is in man's heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand this fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight from light.