To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.

Books and Reading

A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.

Charm

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.

Death and Dying

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

Dissatisfaction

Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.

Fallibility

We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.

Freedom

The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action.

Giving

It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.

Happiness

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

Ideology

Whoever today speaks of human existence in terms of power, efficiency, and "historical tasks" is an actual or potential assassin.

Injustice

Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the sufferings of the world.

Life and Living

If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.

Life, Lust For

Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all his actions.

Necessity

We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity.

Optimism

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

Principles

The principles which men give to themselves end by overwhelming their noblest intentions.

Production

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

Self-knowledge

To know oneself, one should assert oneself. Psychology is action, not thinking about oneself. We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

Suffering

In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day.

Virtue

Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.