We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life.

Let your youth have free reign. It won't come again, so be bold, and no repenting.

I should learn to run, to wrestle, to swim, to ride horses, to row, to drive a car, to fire a rifle. I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul. In fact, I should reconcile at last within me the two internal antagonists.

Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

Life's true face is the skull.