I was escaping from Nature and at last becoming myself, that Other whom I was aspiring to be in the eyes of others.

A Soviet citizen, an official writer, once said to me: "The day when Communism (that is, well-being for everyone) reigns, man's tragedy will begin: his finitude."

What is life but an unpleasant interruption to a peaceful nonexistence.

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me — and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

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.

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