I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life.

I believe in the gods; or rather I believe that I believe in the gods. But I don't believe that they are great brooding presences watching over us; I believe they are completely absent minded.

Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.

There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is made of the way we eat, the way we walk, the way we greet people.

Men should only believe half of what women say. But which half?

One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.

A man's name, title, and rank are artificial and impermanent; they do nothing to reveal what he really is, even to himself.