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

It's a curious idea to reproduce when you don't even like life.

Rumor had it that he was homosexual; in reality, in recent years, he was simply a garden-variety alcoholic.

Using a big word like 'plagiarism'... always causes some damage. It will always do lasting damage, like accusations of racism.

I've lived so little that I tend to imagine I'm not going to die; it seems improbable that human existence can be reduced to so little; one imagines, in spite of oneself, that sooner or later something is bound to happen. A big mistake. A life can just as well be both empty and short. The days slip by indifferently, leaving neither trace nor memory; and then all of a sudden they stop.

An entire life spent reading would have fulfilled my every desire; I already knew that at the age of seven. The texture of the world is painful, inadequate; unalterable, or so it seems to me. Really, I believe that an entire life spent reading would have suited me best. Such a life has not been granted me.

In reality, the monotheist texts preach neither peace, love nor tolerance. They are texts of hate.