“He sometimes tells himself that there is nothing more to be said, simply because he won’t get around to saying it.—How contemptible!”

“[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy… Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.”

“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist see him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of himself. Man simply is.”

“All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.”

“When I’m nothing more, won’t I be more nothing? How I’d like not to be more nothing when I’m nothing more!”

“You mean to say he became mad deliberately?'
… Nothing is more likely,' said the duke.”

“If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.”

“My father had a deep and lifelong contempt for politicians in general ("They tell lies," he used to say with wonder, "even when they don't have to").”

“[…] Because the Egoist is to himself the warder of the human, and has nothing to say to the state except: "Get out of my sunshine!"”

“But if you say: "How am I to know what he means, when I see nothing but the signs he gives?" then I say: "How is he to know what he means, when he has nothing but the signs either?"”