“To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job.”

All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception.

Literature took the place in my life that had once been occupied by religion: it absorbed me entirely, and transfigured my life.

A day in which I don’t write leaves a taste of ashes.

The characteristic feature of all ethics is to consider human life as a game that can be won or lost and to teach man the means of winning.

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.

History took hold of me and never let me go thereafter.

No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.

Sex pleasure in women is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; if words or movements oppose the magic of caresses, the spell is broken.

It is so tiring to hate someone you love.

Man may reproach women for their dissimulation, but his complacency must be great indeed for him to be so constantly duped.

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

Every individual concerned to justify his existence feels that his existence involves an undefined need to transcend himself, to engage in freely chosen projects.

Whether you think of it as heavenly or as earthly, if you love life immortality is no consultation for death.

She would never change, but one day at the touch of a fingertip she would fall to dust.

If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me.

The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.

Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I am strongly persuaded that after theology, there is no art which can be placed on the level with music.

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

Art is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light of the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit.

You don’t take a photograph, you make it.

Creativity is a continual surprise.

The artist and the photographer seek the mysteries and the adventure of experience in nature.

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?