The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is.

[Stéphane Mallarmé] theory of the hermetic is a mistake, but he can be only difficult to read when he has difficult things to say.

At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself.

I am not virtuous. Our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to be.

Besides one should not believe that the people only want reading that is easy to absorb.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward.