Bourgeois existence is the regime of private affairs . . . and the family is the rotten, dismal edifice in whose closets and crannies the most ignominious instincts are deposited. Mundane life proclaims the total subjugation of eroticism to privacy.

The killing of a criminal can be moral-but never its legitimation.

The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.

For only that which we knew and practiced at age 15 will one day constitute our attraction. And one thing, therefore, can never be made good: having neglected to run away from home.

All disgust is originally disgust at touching.

A blind determination to save the prestige of personal existence, rather than, through an impartial disdain for its impotence and entanglement, at least to detach it from the background of universal delusion, is triumphing almost everywhere.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.