We must act out passion before we can feel it.

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

Is there really nothing, nothing left of me?

Absurd, irreducible; nothing--not even a profound and secret delirium of nature--could explain [a tree root].

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.)

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 been playing with matches and burned a small rug. I was in the process of covering up my crime when suddenly God saw me. I felt His gaze inside my head and on my hands....I flew into a rage against so crude an indiscretion, I blasphemed....He never looked at me again....I had the more difficulty getting rid of Him the Holy Ghost in that He had installed Himself at the back of my head....I collared the Holy Ghost in the cellar and threw Him out.