Jean-Paul Sartre

This is what I have to avoid, I must not put in strangeness where there is none.

all these changes concern objects. At least, that is what I'd like to be sure of.

A good night, one good night and all this nonsense will be swept away.

when the Self-Taught Man1 came to say good morning to me, it took me ten seconds to recognize him. I saw an unknown face, barely a face.

So a change has taken place during these last few weeks. But where? It is an abstract change without object. Am I the one who has changed? If not, then it is this room, this city and this nature; I must choose.

Shall I have to go off again, leaving my research, my book and everything else unfinished? Shall I awake in a few months, in a few years, broken, deceived, in the midst of new ruins?

I would like to see the truth clearly before it is too late.

live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

All that is nothing new; I have never resisted these harmless emotions; far from it. You must be just a little bit lonely in order to feel them, just lonely enough to get rid of plausibility at the proper time. But I remained close to people, on the surface of solitude, quite resolved to take refuge in their midst in case of emergency. Up to now I was an amateur at heart.

Still, somehow I am not at peace: I have been avoiding looking at this glass of beer for half an hour. I look above, below, right and left; but I don't want to see it.