Those who understood, in fact, say: 'I mustn't do this, I mustn't do that,' so as not to commit some stupidity or other! Splendid! But at a certain point we realize that all life is stupidity; so tell me yourself what it means never to have done anything foolish. At the very least it means you have never lived.

When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him.

Life is little more than a loan shark: It exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn't it?

All I'm saying is that you should show some respect for what other people see with their eyes and feel with their fingers, even though it be the exact opposite.

Woe to him who doesn't know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!

Life is a very sad piece of buffoonery, because we have .. the need to fool ourselves continuously by the spontaneous creation of a reality .. which, from time to time, reveals itself to be vain and illusory.