We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

On my way to the office in the morning, there are, in front of me, behind me, other men going to their jobs. I see them; if I dared, I would smile at them. I think to myself that I am a socialist, that they are the purpose of my life, of my efforts and that they do not know it yet.

To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June

I must be without remorse or regrets as I am without excuse; for from the instant of my upsurge into being, I carry the weight of the world by myself alone without help, engaged in a world for which I bear the whole responsibility without being able, whatever I do, to tear myself away from this responsibility for an instant.

Time is too large, it can't be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrates.

I have always been happy. Even if I had been more honest with regard to myself at that moment I should still have written La Nausee.

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.