When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.

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

I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view.