Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

I have nothing but contempt for you idiotic chosen ones who have the heart to rejoice when there are the damned in Hell and the poor on earth; as for me, I am on the side of men and I will not leave it.

I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in . . . but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted.

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.

What I ask of [the writer] is not to ignore the reality and the fundamental problems that exist. The world's hunger, the atomic threat, the alienation of man, I am astonished that they do not color all our literature.

For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexibleorder gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves.... I would like to hole them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stooping one, there would only remain in may hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.

So much torture, bloodshed, deceit. You cannot make your young people practice torture twenty-four hours a day and not expect to pay a price for it.