Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn't come in contact with death; that's why he can speak with such assurance of the truth-with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishioners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its goodness.

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.

There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.

Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian.

Independence is earned by a few words of cheap confidence

Every minute of life carries with it its miraculous value, and its face of eternal youth.

Then we understand that rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love. Those who find no rest in God or in history are condemned to live for those who, like themselves, cannot live; in fact, for the humiliated.