My pessimism has never been flabby.

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.

What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never useit for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power.

So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.

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

What never vary are the necessities of being in the world, of having to labor and to die there.

Words are loaded pistols.