If you begin by saying, 'Thou shalt not lie,' there is no longer any possibility of political action.

What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? It means first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and, only afterwards, defines himself. If man, as the existentialist conceives him, is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterward will he be something, and he himself will have made what he will be.

I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me.

The aim of language...is to communicate...to impart to others the results one has obtained...As I talk, I reveal the situation...I reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it.

Your scare me rather. My reflection in the glass never did that; of course, I knew it so well. Like something I had tamed...I'm going to smile, and my smile will sink down into your pupils, and heaven knows what it will become.

I was a neophyte in another world [in 1954].

In Guinea I could read [Franz] Kafka. I re-discover in him my own discomfort.