He entered the territory of lies without a passport for return.

I have often noticed that a bribe has that effect -- it changes a relation. The man who offers a bribe gives away a little of his own importance; the bribe once accepted, he becomes the inferior, like a man who has paid for a woman.

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful, one can wage a pitiless war, but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

When we are not sure, we are alive.

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?

His hilarity was like a scream from a crevasse.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.