What is not possible is not to choose.

To keep hope alive one must, in spite of all mistakes, horrors, and crimes, recognize the obvious superiority of the socialist camp.

Existence is prior to essence.

Take [Stéphane] Mallarme. I hold him to be the greatest of French poets, and I have taken some time to understand him !

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

All the same, they [books] do serve some purpose. Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image.