What I regretted in La Nausee was not to have put myself completely into the thing. I remained outside my hero's disease, protected by my neurosis which, through writing, gave me happiness.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

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

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

I have always been an optimist, perhaps even too much.

A kiss without a moustache, they said then, is like an egg without salt; I will add to it: and it is like Good without Evil.

The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions … and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the “divine irresponsibility” of the condemned man.