When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.

The Americans are completely stupid. The intellectual level in any single European country is higher than in America.

Active people don't change the world profoundly; ideas do. Napoleon is less important in world history than Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I think it's more difficult to live without a religion, definitely.

Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.

I think she is going to find you too old... Yes that was it, the moment she said it I knew it was true, and the revelation caused me no surprise, it was like the echo of a dull, not unexpected shock. The age difference was the last taboo, the final limit, all the stronger for the fact that it remained the last and had replaced all the others. In the modern world you could be a swinger, bi, trans, zoo into S&M, but it was forbidden to be old.

I prefer reading to writing. Reading changes your world view. Writing changes absolutely nothing. Except, of course, when it makes you rich.