Jean-Paul Sartre

... one is never finished with one’s family, it’s like the smallpox that catches you as a child and leaves you marked for life.

I always say that if you wanted to think the worst of a man, better not see him close to, because when you watch him getting stuck a little deeper you think it’s all just hopeless and in the end there’s no difference between drinking a cup of café

Jacques was talking, Mathieu looked at him, it was all so tedious, the bureau in the half-light, the snatches of band-music from beyond the pines, the curls of butter in the little dish, the empty bowls on the tray: so futile an eternity.

He had waited so long: his latter years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited: of course he had run after girls all that time, he had travelled, and naturally he had had to earn his living.