Quote collection
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"Big tears of frustration and exhaustion were streaming down his cheeks. But because of all the wrinkles, they weren't dripping off. They spread out and ran together again, leaving a watery film over his ruined face."
"We are not certain, we are never certain."
"After all, I do not have so many ways of proving that I am free. We is always free at the expense of someone else. It is a bother,but it is normal."
"[Paris] is dirty. It has pigeons and black yards. The people have white skin."
"It would be unjust, and moreover Utopian, for Shakespeare to direct the shoemakers' union. But it would be equally disastrous forthe shoemakers' union to ignore Shakespeare."
"Being is good, but getting rich is better.... If the gods had only the riches of men's adoration, they would be as poor as poor Caligula."
"I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings."
"History has shown that the less people read, the more books they buy."
"How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could truly be interested in?"
"The principle can be established that for a man who does not cheat what he believes to be true must determine his actions."
"The world is unimportant and whoever recognizes this conquers his liberty."
"No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition."
"In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything- by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live."
"he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while."
"In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it."
"There is but one freedom, to put oneself right with death. After that everything is possible."
"Ce que je sais de la morale, c'est au football que je le dois. (I know of morality, it is football that I owe.)"
"...there was only one thing that interested her and that was getting into bed with men whenever she'd the chance. And I warned her straight. 'You'll be sorry one day, my girl, and wish you'd got me back'."
"The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together."
"And then came human beings; humans wanted to cling but there was nothing to cling to."