“Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.”

“All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.”

“Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. It insists on living its own life.”

“It is in this way that a war is disastrous. If it does not kill, it transmits to some an energy alien to their own resources; to others it permits what the law forbids and accustoms them to short cuts. It artificially glorifies ingenuity, pity, daring. A whole younger generation believes itself to be sublime and collapses when it has to draw on itself for patriotism and fate.”

“I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love”

“At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.”

“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.”