His own faith, however, was not lacking in virtues since it consisted in acknowledging obscurely that he would be granted much without ever deserving anything.
Every artist preserves deep within him a single source from which, throughout his lifetime, he draws what he is, and what he says. When the source dries up, the work withers and crumbles.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy.
I’d buy myself a cabin on the beach, I’d put some glue in my navel, and I’d stick a flag in there. Then I’d wait to see which way the wind was blowing.
Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.
Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.
There is in me an anarchy and frightful disorder. Creating makes me die a thousand deaths, because it means making order, and my entire being rebels against order. But without it I would die, scattered to the winds.
In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.
Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.
And so I learned that familiar paths traced in the dusk of summer evenings may lead as well to prison as to innocent untroubled sleep.
Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.
I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being, and the freedom in which I grew up.
After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion.
To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not enough, a police force is needed as well.
To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one’s landlady.
I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.
One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.
Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.
Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.
Nothing is given to mankind and what little men can conquer must be paid for with unjust death. But man’s grandeur lies elsewhere, in his decision to rise above his condition.