117 quotes found
“...luck is not to be coerced.”
“It is better to burn than to disappear.”
“But memory is less disposed to compromise”
“In the long run one gets used to anything.”
“After awhile you could get used to anything.”
“There is something divine in mindless beauty.”
“For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering”
“Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happ...”
“And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of priso...”
“There's the risk of being loved...and that would keep me from being happy.”
“Gula and Cali lie on their sides, their tiny adder-mouths showing the pink of their palates, their bodies throbbing with lustful and obscene dreams. The sky releases its burden of sun and color. Ey...”
“What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.”
“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
“Mostly, I could tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like eve...”
“I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the enemy of anyone. I only know...”
“Just as there is a moment when the artist must stop, when the sculpture must be left as it is, the painting untouchedjust as a determination not to know serves the maker more than all the resources...”
“Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barel...”
“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
“If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”
“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open ...”
“Mother used to say that however miserable one is, theres always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.”
“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. The...”
“To stay or to go, it amounted to the same thing.”
“At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore...”
“Do you believe in God, doctor?"No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original.”