I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.

Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that's what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity.

If pimps and thieves everywhere were always punished, honest people would all believe themselves always to be innocent.

There is always a certain hour of the day and of the night when a man’s courage is at its lowest ebb, and it was that hour only that he feared.

Once crime was as solitary as a cry of protest; now it is as universal as science. Yesterday it was put on trial; today it determines the law.

The laws of nature may be operative up to a certain limit, beyond which they turn against themselves to give birth to the absurd.

Truth, like light, is blinding. Lies, on the other hand, are a beautiful dusk, which enhances the value of each object.