Perhaps the greatest consolation of the oppressed is to consider themselves superior to their tyrants.

I am probably exaggerating a little, but I owe my equilibrium to ink and paper.

A child's fear is a world whose dark corners are quite unknown to grownup people; it has its sky and its abysses, a sky without stars, abysses into which no light can ever penetrate.

The greatest explorer on this earth never takes voyages as long as those of the man who descends to the depth of his heart.

A scrupulous man will never produce a great novel.

A dish around which I see too many people doesn't tempt me.

If people only knew what lies at the heart of my novels! What a tumult of desires these carefully written pages conceal! I sometimes have a loathing for the furious cravings that give me no peace except when I am working.