Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think ofhimself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.

It is an eternal obligation toward the human being not to let him suffer from hunger when one has a chance of coming to his assistance.

The need of truth is more sacred than any other need.

Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.

There is something else which has the power to awaken us to the truth. It is the works of writers of genius. They give us, in the guise of fiction, something equivalent to the actual density of the real, that density which life offers us every day but which we are unable to grasp because we are amusing ourselves with lies.

An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.