Quotes from ' The Fall' by Albert Camus

He has two faces: He can't love without self-love.

Somebody has to have the last word. Otherwise, every reason can be answered with another one and there would never be an end to it.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.

It is always better to go to bed with a mystery.

One day you find yourself taking without really desiring.

Martyrs must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood-never!

To be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.

People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.

A liking for truth at any cost is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing resists.

What we call basic truths are simply the ones we discover after all the others.

It is not enough to accuse yourself in order to clear yourself.

Alcohol and [men] provided me, I admit, the only solace of which I was worthy.

True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you possess only yourself. It is a jungle without past or future, without any promise above all, not any immediate penalty. The places where it is practiced are separated from the world. On entering, one leaves behind fear and hope. Conversation is not obligatory there; what one comes for can be had without words, and often indeed without money.

Physical jealousy is a result of the imagination at the same time it is a self-judgement. One attributes to the rival the nasty thoughts one had oneself in the same circumstances.

God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves.

Don't wait for the Last Judgement. It takes place everyday.

A person I knew used to divide human beings into three categories: those who prefer having nothing to hide rather than being obliged to lie, those who prefer lying to having nothing to hide, and finally those who like both lying and the hidden.

Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

I have a very old and very faithful attachments to dogs. I like them because they always forgive.

One must forgive the pope. To begin with, he needs it more than anyone else. Secondly, that's the only way to set oneself above him...

We are odd, wretched creatures, and if we merely look back over our lives, there's no lack of occasions to amaze and horrify ourselves.