“When a conscious being appeared, the world went blank.”

“There is no frontier between being and appearing.”

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.”

“Because,' Cormery went on, 'when I was very young, very foolish, and very much alone ... you paid attention to me and, without seeming to, you opened for me the door to everything I love in the world.”

“Rieux knew what the old man was thinking at that moment as he wept, and he thought the same: that this world without love was like a dead world and that there always comes a time when one grows tired of prisons, work and courage, and years for the face of another human being and the wondering, affectionate heart.”

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

“Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.”