“The Stranger” by Albert Camus is filled with thought-provoking quotes that capture the essence of existentialism, absurdism, and the novel’s central themes. Here are some notable ‘The stranger’ Book Quotes :
- On Indifference:
- “I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”
- On Absurdity:
- “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
- On the Sun:
- “The sun was the same as it had been the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the skin.”
- On Society’s Expectations:
- “I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings.”
- On Death:
- “People never change their lives, do they? No matter what happens to them, they go on doing the same things, and reading the same books, and going to the same places…”
- On Meaninglessness:
- “I’d read somewhere that a guy like myself always needs a woman to feel sorry for him.”
- On Emotional Responses:
- “I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else.”
- On the Inevitability of Death:
- “Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.”
- On Conformity:
- “I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”
- On the Nature of Truth:
- “I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.”
These The stranger book quotes reflect the novel’s exploration of the absurdity of life, the indifference of the universe, and the protagonist Meursault’s detached and unconventional perspective on existence.
