Mystery is the basic element of all works of art.

You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all... Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

The Cinema seems to have been invented to express the life of the subconscious, the roots of which penetrate poetry so deeply

If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I'd decline. ''Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,'' I'd reply, ''so I can go on drinking and smoking!''

I would give my life for a man who is looking for the truth. But I would gladly kill a man who thinks that he has found the truth.

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.