Why did I become a writer? A bird's feather on my windowpane in winter and all at once there arose in my heart a battle of embers never to subside again.

Trust firmly in your luck, cling to your happiness, and dare to take risks.

What comes into the world to disturb nothing merits neither attention nor patience

Each act is virgin, even the repeated ones.

Man is able to do what he is unable to imagine. His head trails a wake through the galaxy of the absurd.

A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.

Develop your legitimate strangeness.

How can we live without the unknown before us?

What can be seductive about the eternal nothing is that the finest day is indifferently this one or any other like it.

Be gful to the man who cares nothing for your remorse. You are his equal.

Imagination consists in expelling from reality several incomplete persons, and then using the magic and subversive powers of desire to bring them back in the form of one entirely satisfying presence.

In democracy, our most important tool is to vote. But our power tool is when we have the power to influence others on who to vote for.

The long-term accommodation that protects marriage and other such relationships is ... forgetfulness.

Paris is where my family are, but it's not really home now because I have dear friends in London and dear friends in New York.

The weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties.

Congregations are lifeless because dead men preach to them.

Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life.

You can still function as a living ruin.

I've never had the impulse for someone else to translate me into my own language. My impulse has always been to translate someone else into mine.

Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a ceasefire.