From the period when I wrote La Nausea I wanted to create a morality. My evolution consists in my no longer dreaming of doing so.

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

A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the written words.

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.

I 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.

It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.