I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me — and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me.

The For-itself, in fact, is nothing but the pure nihilation of the In-itself; it is like a hole of being at the heart of Being.

A madman's ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

Thrown into the atmosphere of action [in 1954], I suddenly understood the kind of neurosis that dominated all my previous work. I had not been able to recognize it before: I was inside. Simone de Beauvoir had guessed these reasons before I did.

I do not believe in God; his existence has been disproved by Science. But in the concentration camp, I learned to believe in men.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.