Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

Sad company is bad company.

I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.

Yes, the essence of every love is a child, and it makes no difference at all whether it has ever actually been conceived or born. In the algebra of love a child is the symbol of the magical sum of two beings.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

No act is of itself either good or bad. Only its place in the order of things makes it good or bad.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.