The rich don't have to kill to eat. They employ people, as they call it. The rich don't do evil themselves. They pay. People do all they can to please them, and everybody's happy.

Only a complete alcoholic can think life is funny ... any life!.

They came from the four corners of the earth, driven by hunger, plague, tumors, and the cold, and stopped here. They couldn’t go any futrther because of the ocean. That’s France, that’s the French people.

Man hardly comes in more than two varieties, wherever he is, whatever he does: workers and pimps ... they're either one or the other! ... and inventors, the worst kind of jobholder! ... they stand condemned! ... the writer who doesn't pimp along, peacefully plagiarizing, who doesn't pump out the pop stuff, he's had it! ... everybody hates him!

In circumstances of real tragedy you see things straight away...past, present, and future together.

My trouble is insomnia. If I had always slept properly, I'd never have written a line.

I warn you that when the princes of this world start loving you it means they are going to grind you up into battle sausage.