I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

Existence is prior to essence.

Absurd, irreducible; nothing — not even a profound and secret delirium of nature — could explain it. Obviously I did not know everything, I had not seen the seeds sprout, or the tree grow. But faced with this great wrinkled paw, neither ignorance nor knowledge was important: the world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. A circle is not absurd, it is clearly explained by the rotation of a straight segment around one of its extremities. But neither does a circle exist. This root, on the other hand, existed in such a way that I could not explain it.

Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom-ah the soul-destroying boredom-of long days of mild content.

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

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.

I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.