The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.

We have a very precise image - an image at times shameless - of what we have lost, but we are ignorant of what may follow or replace it.

I am not sure of anything, I know nothing . . . can you imagine that I don't even know the date of my own death?

I would rather like to think of God as being a kind of adventurer - even as Wells thought about him - or perhaps as something within us making for some unknown purpose.

In adultery, there is usually tenderness and self-sacrifice; in murder, courage; in profanation and blasphemy, a certain satanic splendour. Judas elected those offences unvisited by any virtues: abuse of confidence and informing.

Writing is only a guided dream.

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.