Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all.

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.

An individual chooses and makes himself.

Through the lack of attaching myself to words, my thoughts remain nebulous most of the time. They sketch vague, pleasant shapes and then are swallowed up; I forget them almost immediately.

The more one is absorbed in fighting evil, the less one is tempted to place the good in question.

What's done at night belongs to the night. In the daytime you don't talk about it.

I was escaping from Nature and at last becoming myself, that Other whom I was aspiring to be in the eyes of others.