Likewise, every time somebody interjects to speak of my honesty there is someone who quivers inside me.

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 first progressive step for a mind overwhelmed by the strangeness of things is to realize that this feeling of strangeness is shared with all men and that human reality, in its entirety, suffers from the distance which separates it from the rest of the universe.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral: namely, that a man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them. One has to pay something. A man who has become conscious of the absurd is forever bound to it.

And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.

My great idea is that we must forgive the Pope. First of all, he needs it more than anyone else. Besides, it is the only way of placing oneself above him.