Tenderness is a deeper instinct than seduction, which is why it is so hard to give up hope.

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

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.

Polemical debates happen all the time in France.

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

Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. It’s what’s known as ‘the law of the market’… In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.

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