There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

Thrown into the atmosphere of action [in 1954], I suddenly understood the kind of neurosis that dominated all my previous work. I had not been able to recognize it before: I was inside. Simone de Beauvoir had guessed these reasons before I did.

I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.

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

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

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

In wanting freedom we discover that it depends entirely on the freedom of others, and that the freedom of others depends on ours. . . I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. I can take freedom as my goal only if I take that of others as a goal as well.