A Soviet citizen, an official writer, once said to me: "The day when Communism (that is, well-being for everyone) reigns, man's tragedy will begin: his finitude."

So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: Hell is other people.

In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

It is enough that one man hate another for hate to gain, little by little, all mankind.

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.