“All facts are. In a world where everythingis given and nothing is explained, the fecundity of a value or of ametaphysic is a notion devoid of meaning.”

“Talking of politics, I would like to reiterate that Arabs are people. By that I mean they are not merely an anonymous mass of peasants with nothing worth fighting for, as the Western world sees them. On the contrary, they are people with great traditions and the highest values, for all our reluctance to assess them impartially.”

“If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance.”

“There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.”

“Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already been felt what solution might be given. At this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate, knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness.”

“We live in a world where one needs to choose - to be the victim or the executioner, and nothing else.”

“Knowing whether or not man is free involves knowing whether he can have a master. The absurdity peculiar to this problem comes from the fact that the very notion that makes the problem of freedom possible also takes away all its meaning. For in the presence of God there is less a problem of freedom than a problem of evil. You know the alternative: either we are not free and God the all-powerful is responsible for evil. Or we are free and responsible but God is not all powerful. All the scholastic subtleties have neither added anything to nor subtracted anything from the acuteness of this paradox.”