No, I regret nothing, all I regret is having been born, dying is such a long tiresome business I always found.

To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living.

I write about myself with the same pencil and in the same exercise book as about him. It is no longer I, but another whose life is just beginning.

We wait. We are bored. (He throws up his hand.) No, don't protest, we are bored to death, there's no denying it. Good. A diversion comes along and what do we do? We let it go to waste. Come, let's get to work! (He advances towards the heap, stops in his stride.) In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone more, in the midst of nothingness!

What kind of country is this where a woman can't weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers!

Friendship, according to Proust, is the negation of that irremediable solitude to which every human being is condemned.

Until the day when, your endurance gone, in this world for you without arms, you catch up in yours the first mangy cur you meet, carry it for the time needed for it to love it and you it, then throw it away.