"The two projects were closely connected by Sartre’s conviction that it was the pitfalls of mankind’s own imagination that sent him into a permanent state of despair. Particularly when the ideas that individuals have about themselves are in open conflict with their actual existence. At the same time, the ways of fundamentally missing the outline of one’s own identity are as rich and diverse as the power of the human imagination itself. To imagine this, the couple had only to look out of their café window and observe the good citizens of Rouen or Le Havre drifting by in more or less silent despair."
— Wolfram Eilenberger and Shaun Whiteside, The Visionaries