“he was conscious of the disastrous fact that love and desire must be expressed in the same way...”

“In normal times all of us know, whether consciously or not, that there is no love which can't be bettered; nevertheless, we reconcile ourselves more or less easily to the fact that ours has never risen above the average.”

“every night, when he didn't want to be alone, or to age or die, with that set expression he assumed which she occasionally recognized on other men's faces, the only common expression of those madmen hiding under an appearance of wisdom until the madness seizes them and hurls them desperately toward a woman's body to bury in it, without desire, everything terrifying that solitude and night reveals to them.”

“That's the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he can't love without self-love.”

“It would be the most peaceful to love in silence, but there are consciousness and personality, so we have to speak. And then love becomes hell.”

“I loved them, according to the hallowed expression, which amounts to saying that I never loved any of them.”

“The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”