I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument.

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

We make our own hell out of the people around us.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total... because it may well involve the whole world.

I have nothing but contempt for you idiotic chosen ones who have the heart to rejoice when there are the damned in Hell and the poor on earth; as for me, I am on the side of men and I will not leave it.

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?