There is something divine in mindless beauty.
But a man's beauty represents inner, functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face? Mersault was aware of this now, delighting in his vanity and smiling at his secret demo...
...he was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way...
Their pleasures are fierce and their sleep impenetrable. And they know that the body has a soul in which the soul has no part.
Beyond the curve of his days he glimpsed neither superhuman happiness nor eternity--happiness was human, eternity ordinary.
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. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that com...
He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idlen...
There's the risk of being loved...and that would keep me from being happy.
What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.
Healthy people have a natural skill of avoiding feverish eyes.
You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.
I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.
Independence is earned by a few words of cheap confidence
People don't love each other at our age, Marthe—they please each other, that's all. Later on, when you're old and impotent, you can love someone. At our age, you just think you do. That's all it is.
