Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total... because it may well involve the whole world.

That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget.

The viable jewels of life remain untouched when man forgets his vocation of searching for the truth of his existence.

What I regretted in La Nausee was not to have put myself completely into the thing. I remained outside my hero's disease, protected by my neurosis which, through writing, gave me happiness.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting it.

On my way to the office in the morning, there are, in front of me, behind me, other men going to their jobs. I see them; if I dared, I would smile at them. I think to myself that I am a socialist, that they are the purpose of my life, of my efforts and that they do not know it yet.