There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

Sign of old age: distress at all leave-takings, all separations. And the sadness of memories, because I'm aware they're condemned to death.

A writer is hoisted up onto a pedestal only to scrutinize him more closely and conclude that it was a mistake to put him up there in the first place.

Every time a man dies, a child dies too, and an adolescent and a young man as well; everyone weeps for the one who was dear to him.

If you haven't been happy very young, you can still be happy later on, but it's much harder. You need more luck.

In 1949, I believed that social progress, the triumph of the proletariat, socialism would lead to the emancipation of women. But I saw that nothing came of it: first of all, that socialism was not achieved anywhere, and that in certain countries which called themselves socialist, the situation of women was no better than it was in so-called capitalist countries.