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.

In Les Mots I explain the origin of my madness, of my neurosis. This analysis may help the young who dream of writing.

All the same, they [books] do serve some purpose. Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image.

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think… and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire.

For the time being I have seen enough of living things, of dogs, of men, of all flabby masses which move spontaneously.

We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us.

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.