... the stomach is near the heart and one appetite pricks on another.

An animal is not cruel; it lives wholly in the instant leap on its prey, in the present taste of marrow or blood. Cruelty begins with the memory, and the pleasures of the memory are impure; they draw their strength along levels where no sun has reached.

A joke is a joke or the image of a truth.

There is only one world the world pressing against you this minute.

... the truth is exactly that which can't be got into words. We are forced to lie, a little or, if we are inferior, much.

... I used words without precautions. I wanted to disappear into them, I fled into the bovaryism of the writer trying to create an effect.

A politician is forced to make a habit of noble phrases and optimistic lies. In the end they infect himself.