Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death—and I refuse suicide.

The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter writer, Sade. The only poet of the times was the guillotine.

We continue to shape our personality all our life. If we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die.

We do not know how to eliminate evil, but we do know how to feed some of the hungry and heal some of the infirmed.

I felt as though I was partly unlearning what i had never learned and yet knew so well: I mean, how to live.

At a certain level of suffering or injustice no one can do anything for anyone. Pain is solitary.

I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.