He formed his sentences hesitantly and then threw them at me with such force that I felt as if I were receiving a present each time

Françoise could not help taking a surreptitious glance at Xavière: she gave a start of amazement. Xavière was no longer watching, her head was lowered. Françoise barely suppressed a scream. The girl was pressing the lighted end against her skin, a bitter smile curling her lips. It was an intimate, solitary smile, like that of a half-wit; the voluptuous, tortured smile of a woman possessed of some secret pleasure.

From the very beginning, existentialism defined itself as a philosophy of ambiguity.

Every time a man dies, a child dies too, and an adolescent and a young man as well; everyone weeps for the one who was dear to him.

immortality is a terrible curse.

Weakness' is weakness only in light of the aims man sets for himself, the instruments at his disposal and the laws he imposes.

If you are truly on the left, if you reject ideas of power and hierarchy, what you want is equality. Otherwise, it won't work at all.