But [your crime] will be there, one hundred times denied, always there, dragging itself behind you. Then you will finally know that you have committed your life with one throw of the die, once and for all, and there is nothing you can do but tug our crime along until your death. Such is the law, just and unjust, of repentance. Then we will see what will become of your young pride.

Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.

This desire [to write] is rather strange all the same and is not without a certain "cracked" quality.

What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death.

I think [Alain Robbe-Grillet] a good writer, but he speaks to the comfortable bourgeoisie.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

I think there is an enormous diference between speaking and writing. One rereads what one writes. But one might read it slowly or quickly. In other words, you do not know how long you will have to spend deliberating over a sentence. ... But if I listen to a tape recorder, the listening time is determined by the speed at which the tape turns and not by my own needs.