Some quotes from Albert Camus really resonated in The Writer’s Almanac newsletter today.
From his speech when accepting the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957:
I have not been able to learn of your decision without comparing its repercussions to what I really am. A man almost young, rich only in his doubts and with his work still in progress, accustomed to living in the solitude of work or in the retreats of friendship: how would he not feel a kind of panic at hearing the decree that transports him all of a sudden, alone and reduced to himself, to the center of a glaring light?
Of living in a village in Provence:
… I have retreated here to work, and in fact I have worked. For me, working conditions have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is violence I do to myself. But this is necessary. I will be back in Paris at the beginning of January and then will leave again, and I really think that this commuting is the most efficient way to reconcile my virtues and vices, which ultimately is the definition of knowing how to live. This country, in any case, does not cease to be beautiful and rewarding for me, and I have found peace here.
He died in a car crash a week later.
