We are now in a position to understand the anti-Semite. He is a man who is afraid. Not of the Jews, to be sure, but of himself, of his own consciousness, of his liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and of the world of everything except the Jews.

When my relations with the Communist Party gave me the necessary perspective I decided to write my autobiography. I wanted to show how a man can pass from literature held sacred to action which nevertheless remains that of an intellectual.

It is meaningless that we are born, it is meaningless that we die.

My pessimism has never been flabby.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

emotion is first of all and in principle an accident