 I saw Mussolini tirelessly contemplate a parade of thousands of young men. |
| I adore life but I don't fear death. I just prefer to die as late as possible. |
| The fact that we are I don't know how many millions of people, yet communication, complete communication, is completely impossible between two of those people, is to me one of the biggest tragic themes in the world. |
| It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened. |
| Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person. |
| I have always tried to write in a simple way, using down-to-earth and not abstract words. |
| One of them, for example, which will probably haunt me more than any other is the problem of communication. |
| The lake and the mountains have become my landscape, my real world. |
| Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. |
| Of course, I also gave him the ineffable pleasures of pipe smoking. And no children, because when this character was created I did not yet have the four children I later had. I must add I also gave him a certain taste for food. |
