I was made for another planet altogether. I mistook the way.

Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me.

One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius; and the feminine situation has up to the present rendered this becoming practically impossible.

Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.

To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude.

It's not a very big step from contentment to complacency.

I take on a shape and an existence only if I first throw myself into the world by loving, by doing.