Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.

Prayer consists simply in giving to God all the careful attention of which the soul is capable.

Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love andjustice.

Someone who does not see a pane of glass is not aware of not seeing it.

Art has no immediate future, because all art is collective and there is no more collective life.

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.

Distance is the soul of beauty.