[Stéphane Mallarmé] theory of the hermetic is a mistake, but he can be only difficult to read when he has difficult things to say.

I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have dragged through I don't know how many consciences.

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking.

Originally, poetry creates the myth, while the prose-writer draws its portrait.

What I regretted in La Nausee was not to have put myself completely into the thing. I remained outside my hero's disease, protected by my neurosis which, through writing, gave me happiness.

it was odd, he thought, that a man could hate himself as though he were someone else.

When one loves animals and children too much, one loves them against human beings.