No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition.

And real nobility (that of the heart) is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.

The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but theconsequences and rules of action drawn from it.

These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.

But when a man has had only four hours' sleep he isn't sentimental. He sees things as they are: that is to say, he sees them in the garish light of justice; hideous, witless justice.

God is not necessary to create culpability, or to punish. Our fellow men are enough for that, helped by ourselves.

The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action.