These years of the Ecole Normale were an ordeal. Nothing was handed to me on the first try.

I speak only one language, and it is not my own.

The blindness that opens the eye is not the one that darkens vision. Tears and not sight are the essence of the eye.

Such a caring for death, an awakening that keeps vigil over death, a conscience that looks death in the face, is another name for freedom.

Who ever said that one was born just once?

Peace is only possible when one of the warring sides takes the first step, the hazardous initiative, the risk of opening up dialogue, and decides to make the gesture that will lead not only to an armistice but to peace.

Psychoanalysis has taught that the dead – a dead parent, for example – can be more alive for us, more powerful, more scary, than the living. It is the question of ghosts.