I have no need for good souls: an accomplice is what I wanted.
It is not the same thing if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre or if I sign Jean-Paul Sartre, Nobel Prize winner. A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.
I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati’s.
To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.
Don’t you feel the same way? When I cannot see myself, even though I touch myself, I wonder if I really exist.
What is boredom? It is when there is simultaneously too much and not enough.
The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
Words are loaded pistols.
Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.
Acting is happy agony.
People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?
Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.
I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.
Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.
I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.
Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.
For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.
It is only in our decisions that we are important.
One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.
The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.