I am well aware that the problem barely begins at this point; for Vae soli.... [footnote 3: "...Woe to him that is alone..." Ecclesiastes, iv, 10.] I was accused of trying to distinguish myself. My mind is as little inclined to controversy as a mind can be. Instead of standing up to my opponent, I wear myself out trying to understand him. It always seems to me that between men of good faith equally concerned with the public welfare there must eventually be agreement. But they are not of good faith, as I am reluctantly obliged to admit. — Are you now speaking of Communists or Catholics [Gide's friends who converted]? — In the beginning I was thinking only of the latter, then let myself be carried away; because it is true for the one group as it is for the other the moment they believe that the end justifies the means. From that specious doctrine have been born, and are born even today, the most abominable errors. Bad faith consists in pretending to lay one's cards on the table while keeping the winning trumps up one's sleeve. What is the use of discussing in such a case? You merely waste your ink, your time, and your patience. The only thing to do is to carry on and to act as if it were nothing....
— André, So Be It or The Chips are Down, Justin O'Brien (tr.), p. 46.
....It is certain that the man who wonders as he takes up his pen: what service can be performed by what I am about to write? is not a born writer, and would do better to give up producing at once. Verse or prose, one's work is born of a sort of imperative one cannot elude. It results (I am now speaking only of the authentic writer) from an artesian gushing-forth, almost unintentional, on which reason, critical spirit, and art operate only as regulators. But once the page is written, he may wonder: what's the use? ... And when I turn to myself, I think that what above all urged me to write is an urgent need of understanding.... But I know that today many seek their way gropingly and don't know in whom to trust. To them I say: believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it; doubt everything, but don't doubt yourself. There is more light in Christ's words than in any other human word. This is not enough, it seems to be a Christian: in addition, one must believe. Well, I do not believe. Having said this, I am your brother.
— André Gide, Ibid., pp. 145-146.
No, I cannot assert that with the end of this notebook all will be finished; that all will be over. Perhaps I shall have a desire to add something. To add something or other. To make an addition. Perhaps. At the last moment, to add something still ... I am sleepy, to be sure. But I don't feel like sleeping. It strikes me that I could be even more tired. It is I don't know what hour of the night or of the morning .... Do I still have something to say?
My own position in the sky, in relation to the sun, must not make me consider the dawn any less beautiful.
[— last lines, written on 13 Ferruary 1951, six days before death; O'Brien ]
— André Gide, Ibid., p. 166.
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