To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.

In order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society.

There is no justification for present existence other than its expansion into an indefinitely open future.

What is very troubling is that people who have tried to write literature, even, for example, proletarian writers, seem to write within the norms of the dominant class.

it is so difficult not to become vain about one's own good luck.

I think that where you go wrong is that you imagine that your reasons for living ought to fall on you, ready-made from heaven, whereas we have to find them for ourselves.

To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized