I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.
Jean-Paul SartreI have always been happy. Even if I had been more honest with regard to myself at that moment I should still have written La Nausee.
Jean-Paul SartreWith despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.
Jean-Paul SartreThe absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions โฆ and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the โdivine irresponsibilityโ of the condemned man.
Jean-Paul SartreThere are two kinds of existentialist; first, those who are Christian...and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists, among whom...I class myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the turning point.
Jean-Paul Sartre