every human activity, whether it be love, philosophy, art, or revolution, is carried on with a special intensity in Paris.

It is not possible that a just God should forgive people who are wicked because another person who was good endured agony by being nailed to a cross.

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.

I really write to find out what I know about something and what is to be known about something.

Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which life can be poured and lifted to the lips and be tasted.

Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

I am not so repelled by Communism: an element of Communism in politics is necessary and inevitable. In any involved society there must be a feeling that something must be done about poverty - which is the basis of communism.