“Every gesture is a revolutionary act. ”

“To choose ways of not acting was ever the concern and scruple of my life.”

“I'm the empty stage where various actors act out various plays.”

“I walk along a street and see in the faces of the passersby not the expression they really have but the expression they would have for me if they knew about my life and how I am, if I carried, transparent in my gestures and my face, the ridiculous, timid abnormality of my soul.”

“We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.”

“To act—that is true wisdom. I can be what I want to be, but I have to want whatever it is. Success consists in being successful, not in having the potential for success.”

“Let's adopt all the poses and gestures of something we aren't and don't wish to be, and don't even wish to be taken for being.Let's buy books so as not to read them; let's go to concerts without caring to hear the music or see who's there; let's take long walks because we're sick of walking; and let's spend whole days in the country, just because it bores us. [23](Zenith trans.)”