A writer's work is the product of laziness.

A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.

I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.

One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite.