Once liberty has exploded in the soul of a man, the gods can do nothing against that man.

The public, too, has to make an effort in order to understand the writer who, though he renounce complacent obscurity, cannot always express his new-hidden thoughts lucidly and according to accepted models.

Absurd, irreducible; nothing--not even a profound and secret delirium of nature--could explain [a tree root].

At that time [1954], as a result of political events, I was deeply preoccupied by my relations with the Communist Party.

I do not think therefore I am a moustache

A pale reflection of myself wavers in my consciousness...and suddenly the “I” pales, pales, and fades out.

Thrown into the atmosphere of action [in 1954], I suddenly understood the kind of neurosis that dominated all my previous work. I had not been able to recognize it before: I was inside. Simone de Beauvoir had guessed these reasons before I did.