Cette citation est extraite de 'La Nausée' (1938), le premier roman philosophique de Jean-Paul Sartre. Elle apparaît dans les réflexions du protagoniste Antoine Roquentin sur la mémoire, l'identité et la dégradation des souvenirs.
"Absence is an acid that eats away at nuances. A person we have loved and been separated from for a few years becomes simplified, discolored, schematized; in short, they become a caricature. Forgetting and slander are almost the same thing."