Man must vanquish himself, must do himself violence, in order to perform the slightest action untainted by evil.

The universal view melts things into a blur.

There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there? The inner smile provoked in us by the patent nonexistence of both.

Do I look like someone who has something to do here on earth?' —That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.

You are done for - a living dead man - not when you stop loving but stop hating. Hatred preserves: in it, in its chemistry, resides the mystery of life.

Our first intuitions are the true ones.

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

Impossible to spend sleepless nights and accomplish anything: if, in my youth, my parents had not financed my insomnias, I should surely have killed myself.

The aphorism is cultivated only by those who have known fear in the midst of words, that fear of collapsing with all the words.

The multiplication of our kind borders on the obscene; the duty to love them, on the preposterous.

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

I really, sincerely believe that one should trust the work, and not the author.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

I don't consider myself attractive. I'm an academic, and in academia, people will write you off if you look younger.

Whatever is done by design is always overdone.

Let me tell you something: I love the Yankees. And let me tell you why: because without the Yankees, there is nobody to hate.

It's baseball. You've got to be the same guy every day, no matter if you go 4-for-4 or 0-for-4.

I think there is an evolving art taking place on Broadway.

Liberals retain a totemic attachment to the Freudian idea that traumatic toilet training is destiny.

You can see my guns at my apartment. The safe room is a special place... It's good to have a safe room in your house. It's storm-proof; we've got food, store supplies, all kinds of stuff.

When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind.