The Stranger

Basic plot descriptions led me to believe it that The Stranger by Albert Camus was mostly just a precursor to Burgess: a disaffected youth and his run-in with the legal system. However, the book itself had much more of Camus's philosophy packed into it than I expected in only 123 pages. A solid read; easily in my top-ten.


"I said, 'Yes,' just so I wouldn't have to say anything else."

"Having this presence breathing down my neck was starting to annoy me."

"He'd told me that they had to bury her quickly, because it gets hot in the plains, especially in this part of the country. That was when he told me he had lived in Paris and that he had found it hard to forget it. In Paris they kept vigil over the body for three, sometimes four days. But here you barely have time to get used to the idea before you have to start running after the hearse."
"I could feel the blood pounding in my temples."

"I had the whole sky in my eyes and it was blue and gold."

"Generally speaking, he's not very popular. But he often talks to me and sometimes stops by my place for a minute, because I listen to him. I find what he has to say interesting. Besides, I don't have any reason not to talk to him."

"'You don't realize that everybody's jealous of how good you have it with me. Someday you'll know just how good it was.'"

"I kissed her. We didn't say anything more from that point on. I held her to me and we hurried to catch a bus, get back, go to my place, and throw ourselves onto my bed."

"A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so."

"I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here at all."

"When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered."

"...it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness."

"At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead."

"He said it was impossible; all men believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him. That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless."

"I think that at first I hadn't realized that all those people were crowding in to see me. Usually people didn't pay much attention to me. It took some doing on my part to understand that I was the cause of all the excitement."

"Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion."

"My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow."

"I was listening to my heartbeat. I couldn't imagine that this sound which had been with me for so long could ever stop. I've never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head."

"Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter."

"He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man."