“This is the real thing of disillusion that no one, not any one really is believing, seeing, understanding, thinking anything as you are thinking, believing, seeing, understanding such a thing.”

Writer or painter god-parents are notoriously unreliable. That is, there is certain before long to be a cooling of friendship.

A diary means yes indeed.

I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do.

It is better to lose and win, than win and be defeated.

What is the answer? In that case, what is the question?

Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.

French people do like good fighting, they like it better than anything.

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?

How likely are definitions to be pleasurable.

As there was never any question there was never any answer.

America is my country and Paris is my hometown.

Suppose no one asked a question. What would the answer be?

Honesty is a selfish virtue. Yes I am honest enough.

Nobody knows what I am trying to do but I do and I know when I succeed.

Love: the skillful audacity required to share an inner life.

Simply naming objectives isn’t sufficient for a vision. If I say that I’m going to build a large palace, but I don’t have any money to do so, then that is not a vision – it’s an illusion.

There is no liberation to compare with freeing oneself from the illusions and delusions of the age in which one lives.

The happiness of being envied is glamour. Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you.

You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest – if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.

Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.

The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power.

If a man proves too clearly and convincingly to himself…that a tiger is an optical illusion–well, he will find out he is wrong.