I had realized in the meantime that action too has its difficulties, and that one can also be led to it by neurosis. We are not saved by politics any more than by literature.

To be responsible is to be the uncontested author of an event or thing.

I receive letters from workers, from secretaries. . . . They are the most interesting ones.

So much torture, bloodshed, deceit. You cannot make your young people practice torture twenty-four hours a day and not expect to pay a price for it.

Man is condemned to be free

When one does nothing, one believes oneself responsible for everything.

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.