The whole Mediterranean, the sculpture, the palm, the gold beads, the bearded heroes, the wine, the ideas, the ships, the moonlight, the winged gorgons, the bronze men, the philosophers - all of it seems to rise in the sour, pungent taste of these black olives between the teeth. A taste older than meat, older than wine. A taste as old as cold water.

Life is like a cucumber. One minute it's in your hand, the next it's up you ass.

Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off.

Everything really desirable has come about because of, or in spite of, wine!

We are all hunting for rational reasons for believing in the absurd.

I am quite alone. I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.

History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.