I sat there for three hours and did not feel the time or the boredom of our talk and its foolish disconnection. As long as I could hear his voice, I was quite lost, quite blind, quite outside my own self.

Three or four threads may be agitated, like telegraph wires, at the same time, and if I were to tap them all I would reveal such a mixture of innocence and duplicity, generosity and calculation, fear and courage, I cannot tell the whole truth simply because I would have to write four journals at once.

I have this weird obsession about buying books and looking at them with a smile, even if I won't read them soon. At least they are mine now.

Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.

It is my secrecy which makes you unhappy, my evasions, my silences. And so I have found a solution. Whenever you get desperate with my mysteries, my ambiguities, here is a set of Chinese puzzle boxes. You have always said that I was myself a Chinese puzzle box. When you are in the mood and I baffle your love of confidences, your love of openness, your love of sharing experiences, then open one of the boxes. And in it you will find a story, a story about me and my life. Do you like this idea? Do you think it will help us to live together?

Love men and women not for their strength but their softness, not for their fullness but their hunger, not for their plenty but their need.

Every individual is representative of the whole . . . and should be intimately understood, and this would give a far greater understanding of mass movements and sociology.