“It is dreadful to think that behind me my own past is no longer anything but shifting darkness.”

I love you, with a touch of tragedy and quite madly.

Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.

I would have to have a bit of heroism and get out of myself. But I love myself so much!

You have never had any confidence in him. And if he has no confidence in himself it is because he sees himself through your eyes.

Modern woman is everywhere permitted to regard her body as capital for exploitation.

Freedom is the source from which all significations and all values spring. It is the original condition of all justification of existence.

A man attaches himself to woman — not to enjoy her, but to enjoy himself.

I feel something troubling inside of me which scares me, an exhausting violence. But I accept the great adventure of being me.

The whole world was nothing but an exile with no hope of a return.

Man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it.

One can never know oneself but only narrate oneself.

To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude.

It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.

Mystery is never more than a mirage that vanishes as we draw near to look at it.

A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man.

That’s what I consider true generosity: You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

The darkness doesn’t stand a chance against the sun.

I’ll see your darkness and love you anyway.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjure up to avoid the unavoidable.

Out of darkness is born the light.

Even on the darkest days the sun still rises.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.

To be honest it became quite dark and cold – without her.