If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever.

God has been kind to dogs in no putting a sense of beauty into their heads.

Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine--to dream about things that have not happened--is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would be quickly forgotten.

I feel a frantic desire to free myself. To start all over again and in another way.

Merely by being born intelligent, you right away find yourself in absolute exile.

But what had happened, had happened, and it was no longer possible to right anything.