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

There are two ways of destroying a people. Either condemn them en bloc or force them to repudiate the leaders they adopted. The second is the worse.

No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point.

What is boredom? It is when there is simultaneously too much and not enough.

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.

The plight of modern man is that he is condemmed to be free.

I wanted pure love: foolishness; to love one another is to hate a common enemy: I will thus espouse your hatred. I wanted Good: nonsense; on this earth and in these times, Good and Bad are inseparable: I accept to be evil in order to become good.