Fiction and poetry are the only way one can stop time and give an account of an experience and nail it down so that it lasts for ever.

My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it. ... I think your hand concentrates for you. I don't know why it should be so.

To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere.

There is nothing more frightening than the faces of people whom one does not know but who seem to know one, and be amused by one.

The case against religion is the responsibility of God for the sufferings of mankind, which makes it impossible to believe the good things said about Him in the Bible, and consequently to believe anything it says about Him.

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

... A La Recherche du Temps Perdu is like a beautiful hand with long fingers reaching out to pluck a perfect fruit, without error,for the accurate eye knows well it is growing just there on the branch, while Ulysses is the fumbling of a horned hand in darkness after a doubted jewel.