Something begins in order to end: an adventure doesn't let itself be extended it achieves significance only through its death.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

At that time [1954], as a result of political events, I was deeply preoccupied by my relations with the Communist Party.

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

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

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.

I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death.