“Lying is not only saying what isn't true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true, and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels.”

“Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”

“Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.”

“A man is more a man through the things he keeps to himself than through those he says.”

“On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.”

“What is a rebel? Someone who says no. But saying no does not mean giving up: it also means saying yes, with every gesture.”

“Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”