I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

There are two kinds of existentialist; first, those who are Christian...and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists, among whom...I class myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the turning point.

To love is never just to love since it is also to will to love, and ... to love in spite of oneself, to allow oneself to be overcome by one's love.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

What I see is teeming cohesion, contained dispersal... For him, to sculpt is to take the fat off space.

The appearance of the other in the world corresponds therefore to a congealed sliding of the whole universe.

Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all.