The distance between the being and the conscience is the nothing

For instance, there is something new about my hands, a certain way of picking up my pipe orfork. Or else it's the fork which now has a certain way of having itself picked up, I don't know. A little while ago, just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding the door-knob.

It is certain that we cannot escape anguish, for we are anguish.

There are two ways to go to the gas chamber, free and not free.

[...] cette liberté, je l'ai cherchée bien loin ; elle était si proche que je ne pouvais la voir, que je ne peux pas la toucher, elle n'était que moi.

[...] Dehors. Dehors. Hors du monde, hors du passé, hors de moi-même : la liberté c'est l'éxil et je suis condamné à être libre.

You didn't succeed. Well, what of that? There's nothing to prove, you know, and the revolution's not a question of virtue but of effectiveness. There is no heaven. There's work to be done, that's all. And you must do what you're cut out for; all the better if it comes easy to you. The best work is not the work that takes the most sacrifice. It's the work in which you can best succeed.

With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection.

You talk a lot about this amazing flow of time but you hardly see it. you see a women, you think that one day she'll be old, only you don't see her grow old. But there are moments when you think you see her grow old and feel yourself growing old with her: this is the feeling of adventure.