After all, every murderer when he kills runs the risk of the most dreadful of deaths, whereas those who kill him risk nothing except promotion.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children.

I thought about how peculiar she was but forgot about her a few minutes later.

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there's always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her.

Conscious, he must be conscious, he must be conscious without deception, without cowardice - alone, face to face - at grips with his body - eyes open upon death. It was a man's business. Not love, not a landscape, nothing but an infinite waste of solitude and happiness in which Mersault was playing his last cards.

You must picture the consternation of our little town, hitherto so tranquil, and now, out of the blue, shaken to its core, like a quite healthy man who all of a sudden feels his temperature shoot up and the blood seething like wildfire in his veins.

When you have an elevated spirit and a miserable heart, you write great things and do the poor.