It is not the world that is absurd, nor human thought: the absurd arises when the human need to understand meets the unreasonableness of the world, when 'my appetite for the absolute and for unity' meets 'the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle.'

Over there, in Europe, all was shame and anger. Here it was exile or solitude, among these languid and agitated madmen who danced in order to die.

The sense of doing good , the satisfaction of being right, the joy of looking favorably upon oneself, dear sir, are powerful levers for keeping us upright and making us progress. On the other hand, if men are deprived of that feeling, they are changed into rabid dogs.

You must have a love, a great love, to ensure an alibi at unjustified despairs that conquer all of us

At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.