In the end, like the Almighty Himself, we make everything in our image, for want of a more reliable model; our artifacts tell more about ourselves than our confessions.

After having exhausted all the arguments on behalf of evil, one utters the creed's dictums with nostalgia rather than with fervor.

Snobbery? But it's only a form of despair.

I got caught up in the proletariat the way Marx describes it.

Racism? But isn't it only a form of misanthropy?

An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.