[On World War II:] The war, which destroyed so much of everything, was also constructive, in a way. It established clearly the cold, and finally unhypocritical fact that the most important thing on earth to men today is money.

The stench of human wreckage in which the Nazi regime finally sank down to defeat has been the most shocking fact of modern times.

Never have nights been more beautiful than these nights of anxiety. In the sky have been shining in trinity the moon, Venus and Mars. Nature has been more splendid than man.

... people who don't want something are less likely to get it than people who do want something.

I'm fond of anything that comes from the sea, and that includes sailors.

The German passion for bureaucracy -- for written and signal forms . . . to move about, to work, to exist -- is like a steel pin pinning each French individual to a sheet of paper, the way an entomologist pins each specimen insect . . .

Genius is a talent only for living, those who possess it have little gift for dying.