Torment, for some men, is a need, an appetite, and an accomplishment.

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

Self-conscious rejection of the absolute is the best way to resist God; thus illusion, the substance of life, is saved.

Wherever we go, we come up against the human, a repulsive ubiquity before which we fall into stupor and revolt, a perplexity on fire.

Life without utopia is suffocating, for the multitude at least: threatened otherwise with petrifaction, the world must have a new madness.

How important can it be that I suffer and think? My presence in this world will disturb a few tranquil lives and will unsettle the unconscious and pleasant naiveté of others. Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history - greater than the fall of empires - I am nevertheless aware of my total insignificance. I am absolutely persuaded that I am nothing in this universe; yet I feel that mine is the only real existence.

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.