Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.

Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.

A decadent civilization compromises with its disease, cherishes the virus infecting it, loses its self-respect.

Every profound dissatisfaction is of a religious nature: our failures derive from our incapacity to conceive of paradise and to aspire to it, as our discomforts from the fragility of our relations with the absolute.

A regret understood by no one: the regret to be a pessimist. It’s not easy to be on the wrong foot with life.

Truths begin by a conflict with the police - and end by calling them in.

One doesn't live in a country, one lives in a language.