“I looked anxiously around me: the present, nothing but the present. Furniture light and solid, rooted in its present, a table, a bed, a closet with a mirror-and me. the true nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past did not exist. Not at all. Not in things, not even in my thoughts. It is true that I had realized a long time ago that mine had escaped me. But until then I had believed that it had simply gone out of my range. For me the past was only a pensioning off: it was another way of existing, a state of vacation and inaction; each event, when it had played its part, put itself politely into a box and became an honorary event: we have so much difficulty imagining nothingness. Now I knew: things are entirely what they appear to be-and behind them... there is nothing.”
Nausea is one of the canonical works of existentialism. Originally published in 1938, it is Sartre's first work of fiction. The novel concerns a dispirited historian who becomes convinced that inanimate objects and situations encroach on his ability to define himself, on his intellectual and spiritual freedom, and thus give him a sense of nausea. It's a great read, albeit a bit disturbing. This is the first UK Edition:
More info here:
http://www.rarebooksleuth.com/featured/nausea-jean-paul-sartre-first-uk-edition-first-printing