“To look for a meaning in anything is less the act of a naif than of a masochist.”

“Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.”

“We cannot consent to be judged by someone who has suffered less than ourselves. And since each of us regards himself as an unrecognized Job...”

“The initial revelation of any monastery: everything is nothing. Thus begin all mysticisms. It is less than one step from nothing to God, for God is the positive expression of nothingness.”

“Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods.”

“Extraordinary and null—these two adjectives apply to the sexual act, and, consequently, to everything resulting from it, to life first of all.”

“Impartiality is incompatible with the will to affirm oneself or quite simply with the will to exist. To acknowledge another’s merits is an alarming symptom, an act against nature.”