Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods.

Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

We are all deep in a hell each moment of which is a miracle.

If we manage to last in spite of everything, it is because our infirmities are so many and so contradictory that they cancel each other out.

To claim you are more detached, more alien to everything than anyone, and to be merely a fanatic of indifference!

I live only because it is in my power to die when I choose to: without the idea of suicide, I'd have killed myself right away.

Every thought should recall the ruin of a smile.