Jean-Paul Sartre
Nausea
“I jump to my feet: if only I could stop thinking, that would be something of an improvement. Thoughts are the dullest things on earth. Even duller than flesh. They stretch out endlessly and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, the unfinished words, the sketchy phrases which keep coming back... I think that I don’t want to think, I mustn’t think that I don’t want to think. Because it is still a thought. Will there ever be an end to it. My thought is me: that is why I can’t stop. I exist by what I think... and I can’t prevent myself from thinking... My saliva is sugary, my body is warm; I feel insipid. My penknife is on the table. I open it. Why not? In any case it would be a change. I put my left hand on the pad and I jab the knife into the palm. The movement was too sudden; the blade slipped, the wound is superficial. It is bleeding. And what of it? What has changed? All the same, I look with a feeling of satisfaction at the white paper, where, across the lines I wrote a little while ago, there is this little pool of blood which has at last stopped being me. Four lines on a white paper, a splash of blood, together that makes a beautiful memory.”
