What I ask of [the writer] is not to ignore the reality and the fundamental problems that exist. The world's hunger, the atomic threat, the alienation of man, I am astonished that they do not color all our literature.

So much torture, bloodshed, deceit. You cannot make your young people practice torture twenty-four hours a day and not expect to pay a price for it.

It is always more valuable to report the truth.

Before you come alive, life is nothing; it 's up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing else but the meaning that you choose.

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

Freedom is existence, and in it existence precedes essence.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.