Jean-Paul Sartre

like Hamlet or Julien Sorel, live outside the pages of the books in which they assumed their characters.

is the feeling of being confronted by a bare existence.

Why is it not otherwise? Why is it at all? What is this is-ness? Isn’t it simply nothing, or rather Nothingness, the unknowable, indispensable Void? What could be more absurd, “non-rational,” meaningless? The mind of man, which he did not ask to be given, demands a reason and a meaning—this is its self-defining cause—and yet it finds itself in the midst of a radically meaningless existence. The result: impasse. And nausea.

The strangest thing is that I am not at all inclined to call myself insane, I clearly see that I am not: all these changes concern objects. At least, that is what I’d like to be sure of.

They eat hurriedly in boarding-houses which they call their “popotes” and, since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meals. They drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, an inconsistent noise which doesn’t bother me. In order to exist, they also must consort with others.

want no secrets or soul-states, nothing ineffable; I am neither virgin nor priest enough to play with the inner life.

would have laughed at the stupefaction which appeared on those two childish faces.

Sunday had spent its fleeting youth

Vain desire: something would stay, taut in them: they were too afraid someone would spoil their lovely Sunday

They were greedily awaiting the hour of soft shadows, of relaxation, abandon, the hour when the screen, glowing like a white stone under water, would speak and dream for them