Torture is senseless violence, born in fear... torture costs human lives but does not save them. We would almost be too lucky if these crimes were the work of savages: the truth is that torture makes torturers.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

When I can't see myself in the mirror, I can't even feel myself, and I begin to wonder if I exist at all.

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

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.

If literature isn't everything, it's not worth a single hour of someone's trouble.

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.