I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

I will put up with any mockery rather than pretend that I am satisfied when I am hungry.

Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented.

This pleasure comes precisely from the sharpest awareness of your own degradation; from the knowledge that you have gone to the utmost limit; that it is despicable, yet cannot be otherwise; that you no longer have any way out; that you will never become a different man.

To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious.

[to Jesus] You did not come down from the cross when they shouted to you, mocking and reviling you: "Come down from the cross and we will believe that it is you." You did not come down because, again, you did not want to enslave man by a miracle and thirsted for faith that is free, not miraculous...I swear, man is created weaker and baser than you thought him! How, how can he ever accomplish the same things as you? ...Respecting him less, you would have demanded less of him, and that would be closer to love, for his burden would be lighter.