I have always been an optimist, perhaps even too much.

I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity.

At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself.

She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond", "What does?" "This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal.

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.

As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way.

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.