Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death

You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hiv

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying

Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail

A good upbringing consists in hiding how much you think of yourself, and how little you think of others

What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you

Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs

In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor nobody is content to be a spectator

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.