Good digestions, the gray monotony of provincial life, and the boredom—ah the soul-destroying boredom—of long days of mild content.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

We will freedom for freedom’s sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon...

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene...

Tu ești pentru mine relația necesară. Toți ceilalți sunt înt mplători.

This instant which I cannot leave, which locks me in and limits me on every side, this instant I am made of will be no more than a confused dream.

Superfluity was the only relationship I could establish between these trees, these hedges, these paths. Vainly I strove to compute the number of the chestnut trees, or their distance from the Velleda, or their height...

At an age when most children are playing hopscotch or with their dolls,you, poor child, who had no friends or toys, you toyed with dreams of murder, because that is a game to play alone.

Much more likely you’ll hurt me. Still what does it matter? If I’ve got to suffer, it may as well be at your hands, your pretty hands.

The bond between being and non-being can be only internal. It is within being qua being that non-being must arise, and within non-being that being must spring up; and this relation can not be a...

There is only one day left, always starting over: It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.

Jupiter: I am not your king, impudent larva? Who then has created you?Orestes: You. But you should not have created me free.

We are our choices.

I have crossed the seas, I have left cities behind me,and I have followed the source of rivers towards theirsource or plunged into forests, always making for othercities. I have had women, I have fought...

But no: he was empty, he was confronted by a vast anger, a desperate anger, he saw it and could almost have touched it. But it was inert – if it were to live and...

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?

I feel my hand. I am these two beasts struggling at the end of my arms. My hand scratches one of its paws with the nail of the other paw; I feel its weight on...

I haven’t had any adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But not adventures. It isn’t a matter of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something I longed for...

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.

There is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is therefore nothing else than the ensemble of his acts,...

I never could bear the idea of anyone’s expecting something from me. Italways made me want to do just the opposite.