Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.
She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist.
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.
Tu n’es rien d’autre que ta vie.
A man rarely feels like laughing alone.
God has always been hard on the poor.
My passion was dead. For years it had rolled over and submerged me; now I felt empty. But that wasn’t the worst: before me, posed with a sort of indolence, was a voluminous, insipid idea. I did not see clearly what it was, but it sickened me so much I couldn’t look at it.
Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited... For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence.
I am never any one of my attitudes, any one of my actions.
The recruit who reports for active duty at the beginning of the war can in some instances be afraid of death, but more often he is ‘afraid of being afraid’; that is, he is filled with anguish before himself.
Her smiles, her mimicries, all the words she uttered were addressed to herself through him.
A little more and I would have fallen into the mirror trap. I avoided it, but only to fall into the window trap: with nothing to do, my arms dangling, I go over to the window.
When she was in Djibouti and I was in Aden, and I used to go and see her for twenty-four hours, she managed to multiply the misunderstandings between us until there were exactly sixty minutes before I had to leave; sixty minutes, just long enough to make you feel the seconds passing one by one.
Aku suka menyadari betapa kerasnya buku bertahan, tidak pernah mau takluk begitu saja padaku; aku jadi terpedaya, capai, tetapi aku amat menikmati ambiguitas posisiku: “mengerti tetapi tidak mengerti”.
My memories are like coins in the devil’s purse: when you open it you find only dead leaves.
They are young and well built, they have another thirty years ahead of them. So they don’t hurry, they take their time, and they are quite right. Once they have been to bed together, they will have to find something else to conceal the enormous absurdity of their existence.
I haven’t any troubles, I have some money like a gentleman of leisure, no boss, no wife, no children; I exist, that’s all. And that particular trouble is so vague, so metaphysical, that I am ashamed of it.