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.

The word 'idiot' comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature.

Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.

Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.

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

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.