Everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident

I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. It always made me want to do just the opposite.

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one's death, one dies one's life.

I can receive nothing more from these tragic solitudes than a little empty purity.

I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.

The consciousness that says 'I am' is not the consciousness that thinks.

In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself.