Once we know and are aware, we are responsible for our action and our inaction. We can do something about it or ignore it. Either way, we are still responsible.

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

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

Atheism is a cruel long term business, and I have gone through it to the end.

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.

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

I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument.