Last election shows that there's a big discrepancy between two parts of the country. That discrepancy also exists in France, but we've had the National Front for forty years, and it only took Trump one year to get elected. Very fast. That's the surprising thing. In France we thought everybody liked Obama, but maybe the media were lying. Maybe they didn't.

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

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

There is no point in asking me general questions because I am always changing my mind.

In order to pass the time I told him the story of the German who ate the other German whom he’d met on the internet.

Depressive lucidity, usually described as a radical withdrawal from ordinary human concerns, generally manifests itself by a profound indifference to things which are genuinely of minor interest. Thus it is possible to imagine a depressed lover, while the idea of a depressed patriot seems frankly inconceivable.

Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.