It’s the well-behaved children that make the most formidable revolutionaries. They don’t say a word, they don’t hide under the table, they eat only one piece of chocolate at a time. But later on, they make society pay dearly.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

[Contemporary writer] could be a kind of [Samuel] Beckett who would not be felt to be totally committed to despair.

[Stéphane Mallarmé] theory of the hermetic is a mistake, but he can be only difficult to read when he has difficult things to say.

All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.

This desire [to write] is rather strange all the same and is not without a certain "cracked" quality.

I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.