I could say that all my books were conceived by the time I was twenty, although they were not to be written for another thirty or forty years. But perhaps this is true of most writers—the emotional storage is done very early on.

We say: mad with joy. We should say: wise with grief.

No one understands eternity. One simply recognizes its existence.

A being afire with life cannot foresee death; in fact, by each of his deeds he denies that death exists.

All happiness is a form of innocence.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself

Writing is a perpetual choice between a thousand expressions, none of which satisfies me, none of which, above all, satisfies me without the others. Yet I ought to know that only music permits a succession of chords.