All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

Uncalled-for aggression arouses the hatred of the civilian population.

Man's existence precedes his essence

Like morality, literature needs to be universal. So that the writer must put himself on the side of the majority, of the two billion starving, if he wishes to be able to speak to all and be read by all. Failing that, he is at the service of a privileged class and, like it, an exploiter.

it was odd, he thought, that a man could hate himself as though he were someone else.

I receive letters from workers, from secretaries. . . . They are the most interesting ones.

Therefore, in the nature of this will for freedom, which freedom itself implies, I may pass judgement on those who seek to hide from themselves the complete arbitrariness and the complete freedom of their existence.