I have to admit that he was not bad at combinatorial analysis - a branch, however, that even then I considered to be dried up.

...it is easy not to believe in monsters, considerably more difficult to escape their dread and loathsome clutches.

The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that Finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny.

Skepticism is like a microscope whose magnification is constantly increased: the sharp image that one begins with finally dissolves, because it is not possible to see ultimate things: their existence is only to be inferred.

My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human condition.

We didn't know each other well. I never had the time. Now I see that it doesn't make any difference. The ones who hurry and the ones who take their time all end up in the same place. Just don't have any regrets. No regrets.

A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.