What's natural is the microbe. All the rest-heath, integrity, purity (if you like)-is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter. The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.

I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead. I couldn't even say that this was hard to stomach; really, there's no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized in time.

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 suppose that it is not so easy to go home and it takes a bit of time to make a son out of a stranger.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

It's not your pictures I like; it's your painting.

An achievement is a bondage. It obliges one to a higher achievement.