If there is a soul, it is a mistake to believe that it is given to us fully created. It is created here, throughout a whole life. And living is nothing else but that long and painful bringing forth.

Men cry because things are not what they ought to be.

I know [my label], in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and underneath, the house motto: "Be wary". On my business cards:"Jean-Baptiste Clamence, actor".

For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving.

Great feelings take with them their own universe, splendid or abject.

Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.

Their guilt made me eloquent because I was not its victim.