"I have always been a melancholic."

"Everything that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

"Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire."

"A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships."

"Don't talk to me about justice. I'm a man of letters, not a judge."