The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted - all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it.

In every society the artist or writer remains an outsider.

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.

Christianity gave eroticism its savor of sin and legend when it endowed the human female with a soul.

There are moments when you have to write certain things and you don't have to think of your sex. If you are writing about the population of the thirteenth district in Paris, even if you are writing on the women in the thirteenth district, there's no need to consider your sex.

We must not confuse the present with the past. With regard to the past, no further action is possible.

Each person has his or her own very particular history and after all, the unconscious is the most secret part of ourselves.