Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. [It is a matter of choice, not chance.] Such is the first principle of existentialism.

Little flashes of sun on the surface of a cold, dark sea.

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 must act out passion before we can feel it.

I'd come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.

In Guinea I could read [Franz] Kafka. I re-discover in him my own discomfort.