Being or nothing, that is the question. Ascending, descending, coming, going, a man does so much that in the end he disappears.

One can easily classify all works of fiction either as descendants of the Iliad or of the Odyssey.

The poet is never inspired, because he is the master of that which appears to others as inspiration. He does not wait for inspiration to fall out of the heavens like roasted ortolans. He knows how to hunt...He is never inspired because he is unceasingly inspired, because the powers of poetry are always at his disposition, subjected to his will, submissive to his own activity.

The most heartbreakingly poignant modern love story ever written.

The Iliad is the private lives of people thrown into disorder by history.

True stories deal with hunger, imaginary ones with love.

Fiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey.