When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about

A child. . . opens and closes like a blossom.

Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days

Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight

You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.

Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food.