Words There is no good father, that's the rule. Don't lay the blame on men but on the bond of paternity, which is rotten. To beget children, nothing better; to have them, what iniquity!

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.

This [service to oppressed] is the writer's task, and, if he fulfills it as he should, he acquires no merit from it.

I will take it all: tongs, molten lead, prongs, garrotes, all that burns, all that tears, I want to truly suffer. Better one hundred bites, better the whip, vitriol, than this suffering in the head, this ghost of suffering which grazes and caresses and never hurts enough.

For common minds have an ugly ability to perceive in the deepest and richest saying nothing but their own everyday opinion.

We do not wish to say only that a man is responsible for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for that of all men.

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