To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head

The public, too, has to make an effort in order to understand the writer who, though he renounce complacent obscurity, cannot always express his new-hidden thoughts lucidly and according to accepted models.

I think [Alain Robbe-Grillet] a good writer, but he speaks to the comfortable bourgeoisie.

A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost.

There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.

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

I have always been happy. Even if I had been more honest with regard to myself at that moment I should still have written La Nausee.