Like all dreamers, I mistook disenchantment for truth.

Il n'y a de réalité que dans l'action. (There is no reality except in action.)

Generosity is nothing else than a craze to possess. All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.

I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity.

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.

I think there is an enormous diference between speaking and writing. One rereads what one writes. But one might read it slowly or quickly. In other words, you do not know how long you will have to spend deliberating over a sentence. ... But if I listen to a tape recorder, the listening time is determined by the speed at which the tape turns and not by my own needs.

If I did not publish this autobiography [Les Mots] sooner and in its most radical form, it is because I considered it exaggerated.