"I am a man of letters, and I am nothing else."

"It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves."

"The true way goes over a rope, not stretched aloft but close to the ground. It seems intended more to make one stumble than to be walked upon."

"Sleep is the most innocent creature and the most, therefore, defenceless. When sleep does not come, it is because I have been too defenceless, too open, too naked to the world."

"I have been so completely absorbed by my work, by my literature, that I have not been able to live, to live with people, to live with the world, to live with myself."