One cannot be a part-time nihilist.

If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am optimistic as to man.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.

But who would dare condemn me in this world with no judges, where no one is innocent!

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.

I like people who dream or talk to themselves interminably; I like them, for they are double. They are here and elsewhere.

He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen - and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death. Hurray then for funerals!