Without the faintest possibility of finding a job, I decided to devote myself to literature: it was about time to find out what I was worth as a writer.

...the habit of falling hardens the body, reaching the ground, to in itself, is a relief.

Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.

If you don't write your books, nobody else will do it for you. No one else has lived your life.

A stomach accustomed to hunger is satisfied with very little.

Though I had come into the world on 16 November 1922, my official documents show that I was born two days later, on the 18th. It was thanks to this petty fraud that my family escaped from paying the fine for not having registered my birth at the proper legal time.

The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done, the last day is the only one that is not the day before another day.