He has forgotten how to hope. This hell of the present is his Kingdom at last. All problems recover their sharp edge. Abstract evidence retreats before the poetry of forms and colors. Spiritual conflicts become embodied and return to the abject and magnificent shelter of man's heart. None of them is settled. But all are transfigured.

Every artist thus keeps within himself a single source which nourishes during his lifetime what he is and what he says.

I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed.

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

The last pages of a book are already contained in the first.

I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.

Indeed, a climate of fear is not one that encourages reflection. However, it is my belief that, instead of using that fear as an excuse, we should recognize it as one of the prime causes of the current situation and try to find a remedy for it.