What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.

By trying to understand everything, everything makes me dream

Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.