There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.

Love is a heart's feeling, there is no understanding or judging.

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.

I kept going back while I was writing the novel - which never sold, may it rest in peace - and by the time it was finished I had too many connections to Haiti to walk away.

The photograph is always more interesting than what the photograph is of.

I think my favourite thing is understanding the responsibility of raising two human beings and putting them into the world.

Sarcasm doesn't read sarcastic in print.

Analysis can tell us what is required, but it cannot make us act.

He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain.

The further the departure from direct and constant control by the citizens, the less has the government of the ingredient of republicanism.

I don't really see myself as an actor.