I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

… Her heart remained empty once more, and the procession of days all alike began again. So they were going to follow one another, like this, in line, always identical, innumerable, bringing nothing!

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

I’m dazzled by your facility. In ten days you’ll have written six stories! I don’t understand it… I’m like one of those old aqueducts: there’s so much rubbish cogging up the banks of my thought that it flows slowly, and only spills from the end of my pen drop by drop.

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

You can't find the soul with a scalpel.

There is no truth. There is only perception.