Sometimes the truth is too simple for intellectuals.

In Les Mots I explain the origin of my madness, of my neurosis. This analysis may help the young who dream of writing.

The painful secret of gods and kings is that men are free, Aegistheus. You know it and they do not.

We are now in a position to understand the anti-Semite. He is a man who is afraid. Not of the Jews, to be sure, but of himself, of his own consciousness, of his liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and of the world of everything except the Jews.

Hell is other people at breakfast.

When she is alone in the rooms I hear her humming to keep herself from thinking.

We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity-it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me.