Words, sentences, ideas, no matter how subtle or ingenious, the maddest flights of poetry, the most profound dreams, the most hallucinating visions, are but crude hieroglyphs chiseled in pain and sorrow to commemorate an event which is untransmissible.

Everyone has his own reality in which, if one is not too cautious, timid or frightened, one swims. This is the only reality there is.

As far as history goes I am dead. If there is something beyond I shall have to bounce back. I have found God, but he is insufficient. I am only spiritually dead. Physically I am alive. Morally I am free. The world which I have departed is a menagerie.

When you meet the man [Brassai] you see at once that he is equipped with no ordinary eyes. And the sharpness of vision and depth of insight are revealed in Brassai's lifelong photographic exploration of Paris - its people, places, and things.

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself.

At the bottom of every frozen heart there is a drop or two of love―just enough to feed the birds.

History is the myth, the true myth, of man's fall made manifest in time.