Anyone can be heroic from time to time, but a gentleman is something you have to be all the time.

Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not live for the sake of living, without knowing how to live; but he lives so as to give a meaning and a value of his own to life.

One cannot choose what he writes - one can only choose to face it.

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.

Inevitably we construct ourselves. Let me explain. I enter this house and immediately I become what I have to become, what I can become: I construct myself. That is, I present myself to you in a form suitable to the relationship I wish to achieve with you. And, of course, you do the same with me.

Life is full of strange absurdities, which, strangely enough, do not even need to appear plausible, since they are true.

As soon as one is born, one starts dying.