Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.

Ah! How I hate the crimes of the new generation: they are dry and sterile as darnel.

The viable jewels of life remain untouched when man forgets his vocation of searching for the truth of his existence.

I have seen children dying of hunger. Over against a dying child La Nausee cannot act as a counterweight.

What I lacked [in La Nausee] was a sense of reality. I have changed since. I have slowly learned to experience reality.

When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow by too: you suddenly see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can't make head or tail: you'd make a terrible witness.

Violence is good for those who have nothing to lose.