But what matter whether I was born or not, have lived or not, am dead or merely dying. I shall go on doing as I have always done, not knowing what it is I do, nor who I am, nor where I am, nor if I am.

We lose our hair, our teeth! Our bloom, our ideals.

Do they [the publishers of Murphy] not understand that if the book is slightly obscure it is because it is a compression and thatto compress it further can only make it more obscure?

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

They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.

The loss of my sight was a great fillip. If I could go deaf and dumb I think I might pant on to be a hundred.

I know those little phrases that seem so innocuous, and, once you let them in, pollute the whole of speech. 'Nothing is more real than nothing.' They rise up out of the pit and know no rest until they drag you down into its dark.