Quote collection
464 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary."
"To choose this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all."
"With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all."
"All I want is' - and he uttered the final words through clenched teeth and with a sort of shame - 'to retain my freedom.' I should myself have thought,' said Jacques, 'that freedom consisted in frankly confronting situations into which one had deliberately entered, and accepting all one's responsibilities. But that, no doubt, is not your view."
"The plight of modern man is that he is condemmed to be free."
"If I did not publish this autobiography [Les Mots] sooner and in its most radical form, it is because I considered it exaggerated."
"There it is: I am gently slipping into the water's depths, towards fear."
"What's done at night belongs to the night. In the daytime you don't talk about it."
"The world would get along very well without literature. It would get along even better without man."
"This is the basis for the joy of love when there is joy; we feel that our existence is justified."
"I am finishing a biography of [Gustave] Flaubert. Because he is the opposite of what I am. One needs to rub up against argument."
"An individual chooses and makes himself."
"My thought is me: that is why I cannot stop thinking. I exist because I think I cannot keep from thinking."
"A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing."
"One could only damage oneself through the harm one did to others. One could never get directly at oneself."
"I am myself and I am here."
"I do not understand! I understand nothing! I cannot understand nor do I want to understand! I want to believe! To Believe!"
"I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my mouth. I swallow. It slides down my throat, it caresses me — and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me."
"The sun is not ridiculous, quite the contrary. On everything I like, on the rust of the construction girders, on the rotten boards of the fence, a miserly, uncertain light falls, like the look you give, after a sleepless night, on decisions made with enthusiasm the day before, on pages you have written in one spurt without crossing out a word."
"As if there could be true stories: things happen in one way, and we retell them in the opposite way."