Life is nothing until it is lived; but it is yours to make sense of, and the of it is nothing other than the sense you choose.

A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.

On my way to the office in the morning, there are, in front of me, behind me, other men going to their jobs. I see them; if I dared, I would smile at them. I think to myself that I am a socialist, that they are the purpose of my life, of my efforts and that they do not know it yet.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument.

We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity-it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me.

I don't know. Everything. Living. Smoking.