Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.

All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.

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

There are photographers who push for war because they make stories. They search for a Chinese who has a more Chinese are than the others and they end up finding one. They have him take a typically Chinese pose and surround him with chinoiseries. What have they captured on their film? A Chinese? Definitely not: the idea of the Chinese.

It is not a matter of indifference whether we like oysters or clams, snails or shrimp, if only we know how to unravel the existential significance of these foods.

I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.