“If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.”

In order for the wheel to turn, for life to be lived, impurities are needed, and the impurities of impurities in the soil, too, as is known, if it is to be fertile. Dissension, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed:.

Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.

We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience.

The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium.

Our ignorance allowed us to live, as you are in the mountains, and your rope is frayed and about to break, but you don’t know it and feel safe.

To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime.

To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one’s becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.

A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.

More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.

For he who loses all often easily loses himself.

If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one’s desk, is a source of profound satisfaction.

The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.

A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.

We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.

It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.

My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.

A writer soon discovers he has no single identity but lives the lives of all the people he creates and his weathers are independent of the actual day around him.

The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error.

Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can’t think what to do with the long winter evenings.

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family.

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.