In Les Mots I explain the origin of my madness, of my neurosis. This analysis may help the young who dream of writing.

Why do you keep maintaining your ideas are right if you can't prove them?

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.

The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is.

Night is falling: at dusk, you must have good eyesight to be able to tell the Good Lord from the Devil.

Many young people today do not concern themselves with style. They think that what one says should be said simply and that is all. For me, style - which does not exclude simplicity, quite the opposite - is above all a way of saying three or four things in one. There is the simple sentence, with its immediate meaning, and then at the same time, below this immediate meaning, other meanings are organized. If one is not capable of giving language this plurality of meaning, then it is not worth the trouble to write.

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.