Never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent;" my sole concern has been to save myself by work and faith.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.

We are our choices.

I am a man, Jupiter, and each man must invent his own path.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

If I did not publish this autobiography [Les Mots] sooner and in its most radical form, it is because I considered it exaggerated.

Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts.