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

If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

Refuse any image that could have a rational meaning or any memory or culture

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.

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

Thank God, I am still an atheist.