The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their very duration great misfortunes are monotonous.

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

The greatness of man lies in his decision to be stronger than his condition.

A lot of jobs don't allow you to be who you are. There is dignity in work only when it is work freely accepted.

At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it.

In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything- by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.

The danger of lectures is that they create the illusion of teaching for teachers, and the illusion of learning for learners.