To have committed every crime but that of being a father.

The literary man? An indiscreet man, who devaluates his miseries, divulges them, tells them like so many beads: immodesty-the sideshow of second thoughts-is his rule; he offers himself.

A civilization begins to decline the moment Life becomes its sole obsession.

He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.

By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing; but instead of nonchalantly promenading our own corruption, we exude our sweat and grow winded upon the fetid air.

Boredom dismantles the mind, renders it superficial, out at the seams, saps it from within and dislocates it.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.