When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all.

In life man commits himself and draws his own portrait, outside of which there is nothing. No doubt this thought may seem harsh to someone who has not made a success of his life. But on the other hand, it helps people to understand that reality alone counts, and that dreams, expectations and hopes only serve to define a man as a broken dream, aborted hopes, and futile expectations.

Everything is gratuitous, this garden, this city and myself. When you suddenly realize it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift . . . that's nausea.

I am not asking for sensational revelations, but I would like to sense the meaning of that minute, to feel it's urgency.

A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form.

And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world.

My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking.