For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously.

That is exactly the writer's problem. What does literature stand for in a hungry world?

I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.

Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

Life is a useless passion.

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.