I understood then that if I were to relive those scenes in the Conciergerie and Beaulieu as intensely as I had felt them when they occurred, I would have to be alone, completely alone. It was a relief to know this, and I realized that the communal life that lay in store would produce new needs, new responses, new projects.

— Henri Charrière, Papillon, 1968, William Morrow (2012 edition)