An uncertain evil causes anxiety because, at the bottom of one's heart, one goes on hoping till the last moment that it may not be true; a certain evil, on the other hand, instills, for a time, a kind of dreary tranquillity.

I like to compare my method with that of painters centuries ago, proceeding from layer to layer.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

...my boredom might be described as a malady affecting external objects and consisting of a withering process; an almost instantaneous loss of vitality--just as though one saw a flower change in a few seconds from a bud to decay and dust.

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

In life there are no problems, that is, objective and external choices; there is only the life which we do not resolve as a problem but which we live as an experience, whatever the final result may be.