There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart, and what you saw there made you faint with horror. And then, next day, you didn't know what to make of it,you couldn't interpret the horror you had glimpsed the day before. Yes, you know what evil costs.

In Guinea I could read [Franz] Kafka. I re-discover in him my own discomfort.

I have such a desire to sleep and am so much behind my sleep. A good night, one good night and all this nonsense will be swept away.

We cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and mute as stones, our very passivity would be an act.

What the painter adds to the canvas are the days of his life. The adventure of living, hurtling toward death.

Man can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.

I was escaping from Nature and at last becoming myself, that Other whom I was aspiring to be in the eyes of others.