Mersault Quotes & Sayings

It was through this odor that he saw the museums and discovered the mystery and the profusion of baroque genius which filled Prague with its gold magnificence. The altars, which glowed softly in the darkness, seemed borrowed from the coppery sky, the misty sunlight so frequent over the city. The glistening scrolls and spirals, the elaborate setting that looked as if it were cut out of gold paper, so touching in its resemblance to the creches made for children at Christmas, the grandiose and grotesque baroque perspectives affected Mersault as a kind of infantile, feverish, and overblown romanticism by which men protect themselves against their own demons. The god worshipped here was the god man fears and honors, not the god who laughs with man before the warm frolic sea and sun. — Albert Camus

What interests me about clocks is that everything is hand-made, and yet to the person looking at the clock, something magical is happening that cannot be explained unless you are the clockmaker. — Brian Selznick

For Mersault, nothing mattered in those days. And the first time Marthe went limp in his arms and her features blurred as they came closer - the lips that had been as motionless as painted flowers now quivering and extended - Mersault saw in her not the future but all the force of his desire focused upon her and and satisfied by this appearance, this image. The lips she offered him seemed a message from a world without passion and swollen with desire, where his heart would find satisfaction. And this seemed a miracle to him. His heard pounded with an emotion he almost took for love. And when he felt the ripe and resilient flesh under his teeth, it was as though he bit into a kind of fierce liberty, after caressing her a long time with his own lips. She became his mistress that same day. — Albert Camus

The paparazzi is kind of crazy here in L.A., but it's nothing like it is in London. They are animals over there, it's insane. — Matthew Morrison

America is a very divided country now. Not only are there red states and blue states, there are now red facts and blue facts. The right-wing believe in creationism. The left in evolution. — John Sayles

There was no room in his life for Marta, and none in her life for him; but it was a pity, all the same. — Josephine Tey

The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her beauty. — Naomi Wolf

This was the second time the doctor had glimpsed something of Mersault's life; they had never confided in each other, Mersault conscious that Bernard was not a happy man, and Bernard rather baffled by Mersault's way of life. They parted without a word. — Albert Camus

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. — Albert Camus

If you have knowledge and see a man weak, do not condemn him. Go to his level and help him if you can. He must grow. — Swami Vivekananda

The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change ... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real. — Philip K. Dick

Day after day, Mersault let himself sink into his life as if he were sliding into water. And just as the swimmer advances by the complicity of his arms and the water which bears him up, helps him on, it was enough to make a few essential gestures - to rest one hand on a tree trunk, to take a run on the beach - in order to keep himself intact and conscious. — Albert Camus

But a man's beauty represents inner, functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face? Mersault was aware of this now, delighting in his vanity and smiling at his secret demons. — Albert Camus

Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts inevitably bring about right results. — James Allen

It's just a dress. But you? You're beautiful. Dressed up, dressed down, not dressed at all. You're beautiful every way you come ... especially when you come. — J.M. Darhower

Your ability?' Jay leaned closer, whispering. 'I think everyone here can do something cool, you know? Like run super fast. Or see people naked!' He nodded. 'I want that one. — Nathan M. Farrugia

As they left, the girls were choking with laughter, but once they reached Mersault's house and the cool shade of the rooms, which emphasized the dazzling whiteness of the sun-drenched garden walls, they discovered a silent harmony that Catherine expressed by the desire to take a sunbath on the terrace. — Albert Camus

Today, in the face of abjection and solitude, his heart said: 'No'. And in the great distress that washed over him, Mersault realised that his rebellion was the only authentic thing in him, and that everything elsewhere was misery and submission". — Albert Camus

The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it. — Bill Cosby

I know perfectly well that it is impossible, according to arithmetic and scholarly books, to live in a far valley off a handful of ewes and two low yield cows. But we live, I say. You children all lived; your sisters now have sturdy children in far-off districts. And what you are now carrying under your heart will also live and be welcome, little one, despite arithmetic and scholarly books. — Halldor Laxness

At this hour of night, his life seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well, that Mersault felt he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger. — Albert Camus

She hesitated: "Do you love your wife?"
Mersault smiled: "That's not essential."
"You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters - all that matters, really - is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest - women, art, success - is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries."
"What matters to me is a certain quality of happiness. I can only find it in a certain struggle with its opposite - a stubborn and violent struggle ... — Albert Camus

If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it. — Anton Yelchin