To live is to feel oneself lost.

Every life is, more or less, a ruin among whose debris we have to discover what the person ought to have been.

The most radical division that it is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: Those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves.

Better beware of notions like genius and inspiration; they are a sort of magic wand and should be used sparingly by anybody who wants to see things clearly.

To write well consists of continuously making small erosions, wearing away grammar in its established form, current norms of language. It is an act of permanent rebellion and subversion against social environs.

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man.

Biography - a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.