But the end is there, transforming everything. For us, the man is already the hero of the story. His moroseness, his money troubles are much more precious than ours, they are all gilded by the light of future passions.

People are like dice. We throw ourselves in the direction of our own choosing.

I have never before had such a strong feeling that I was devoid of secret dimensions, confined within the limits of my body, from which airy thoughts float up like bubbles. I build memories with my present self. I am cast out, forsaken in the present: I vainly try to rejoin the past: I cannot escape.

I clung to nothing, in a way I was calm. But it was a horrible calm—because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes, I heard with its ears, but it was no longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself and I didn't recognize it any more.

I confused things with their names: that is belief.

The four cafés on the Boulevard Victor-Noir, shining in the night, side by side, and which are much more than café--aquariums, ships, stars or great white eyes--have lost their ambiguous charm.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.