The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.

The only real education comes from what goes counter to you.

The most decisive actions of our life - I mean those that are most likely to decide the whole course of our future - are, more often than not, unconsidered.

Fear of ridicule begets the worst cowardice.

You have to let other people be right' was his answer to their insults. 'It consoles them for not being anything else.

To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom.

We prefer to go deformed and distorted all our lives rather than not resemble the portrait of ourselves which we ourselves have first drawn. It’s absurd. We run the risk of warping what’s best in us