The Fall

‘Do you want a clean life, like everyone else?’ Of course, you answer yes. How could you not? ‘Fine. We’ll clean you up. Here’s a job, here’s a family, here’s some organized leisure.’ And the little teeth bite into the flesh, right down to the bone. (Location 67)

I admire such diligence, such methodical patience! You have to be methodical when you have no character. (Location 95)

However. I was on the right side, and that was enough to ease my conscience. A sense of legality, the satisfaction of being right and the joy of self-esteem: these, my dear sir, are powerful incentives to keep us on our feet and moving forward. (Location 151)

was no credit to me: I have always mocked the greed which, in our society, takes the place of ambition. I was aiming higher: you will see that the phrase is accurate in my case. (Location 164)

Let us pause on these lofty peaks. You understand now what I meant when I spoke about aiming higher. I was referring to these high summits, the only place where I can live. Yes, I have never felt so much at home as up there, at the top. Even in the minutiae of daily life, I needed to be up above. I preferred the bus to the métro, hansom cabs to taxis and balconies to mezzanines. As someone who loved light aircraft with open cockpits, I was also the person whom you would always see on boats pacing the poop deck. In the highlands, I avoided enclosed valleys and headed for the passes or the plateaux; I was the man of the high ridges, at the very least. If fate had forced me to choose a manual job, take my word for it, I’d have been a tiler rather than a turner and embraced vertigo to work on the rooftops. (Location 193)

No, the more I was blessed, the more I felt – though I hesitate to admit this – chosen, personally chosen, above all others, for this long, enduring success. In reality, this was a result of my modesty. I refused to attribute my success to sole personal merit and I could not believe that the combination of such different and such extreme qualities in a single being was the result of pure chance. This is why I lived happily and felt, in some way, entitled to this happiness by a command from on high. When (Location 240)

In the internal monologue, ‘please accept my sympathy’ comes right before ‘now let’s get on with something else’. It’s the emotion felt by a prime minister or company chairman: you get it cheap after some disaster. Friendship is not so easy: it’s long and hard to win, but when it’s there, you can’t get rid of it, you have to make do. (Location 254)

There was one man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatter-brained woman, sacrificing everything in his life for her – friends, work, even respectability – only to acknowledge one evening that he had never loved her. He was bored, that’s all, bored, like most people; so he created from scratch a life of complications and drama for himself. Something’s got to happen – that’s the explanation for most human undertakings. Something’s got to happen, even if it’s slavery without love, or war, or death. So long live funerals! (Location 306)

Note: Somethings got to happen Simple

Life got harder for me: when the body is sad, the heart languishes. I felt as though I was partly unlearning what I had never learned and yet knew so well: I mean, how to live. Yes, I really think that this was when it all started. (Location 348)

‘You don’t answer back to your father’ – you’ve heard that one, I suppose? In a sense, it’s an odd idea, because who would you answer back to, except someone you love? Yet, in another way, it’s an effective argument. Someone has to have the last word. Otherwise every point of view would give rise to its opposite and there’d be no end to it all. Power, on the other hand, settles everything. It’s taken us some time, but we’ve realized this at last. (Location 366)

In this way, they will carry on smiling and we can keep our conscience clean. Otherwise, we might be forced to examine ourselves and become mad with grief, or modest … Anything could happen. So: no trade signs and this one is outrageous. In any case, if everyone started doing it, I mean advertising his true business, what he really is, then we wouldn’t know if we were coming or going! Just imagine visiting cards for: ‘Dupont, cowardly philosopher’, or ‘Christian landlord’; or ‘adulterous humanist’ – there’s no end to it, really. It would be hell! Yes, that’s what hell must be like: streets with trade signs and no chance to explain oneself away. You would be pigeon-holed once and for all. (Location 382)

My good fellow, I have to admit, with all humility, that I have always been supremely vain. Me, me, me: that’s the refrain that runs through my precious life and you could hear it in everything I said. I have never been able to speak without boasting, especially if I did so with that resounding restraint that I was so good (Location 394)

First of all, you must know that I have always been a success with women, without trying too hard. I’m not saying that I have managed to make them happy, or even to make myself happy through them; no, just success. (Location 466)

You know what charm is: a way of obtaining the answer ‘yes’ without having asked a clear question. (Location 468)

By not being romantic, I nourished romantic ideas in others, because our women friends have one thing in common with Bonaparte, which is that they always think they will succeed where others have failed. (Location 490)

What’s more, in a sense, I believed what I was saying: I lived my part, so it’s not surprising that my partners, too, started to act their roles. (Location 508)

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures. (Location 546)

I could not live unless all creatures throughout the world, or the greatest possible number, were turned towards me, eternally vacant, deprived of independent life, ready to respond to my call at any moment, in short, condemned to sterility until the day when I might deign to shine my light upon them. In short, for me to live happily, all the creatures whom I chose had not to live at all. They were only to receive life, from time to time, at my good pleasure. (Location 563)

Note: Hollowness of being a player Its just status

Men are not convinced of your arguments, your sincerity or the seriousness of your suffering, except by your death. As long as you are alive, your case is debatable and you only deserve their scepticism. (Location 610)

Oh, my good friend, how feeble is the imagination of men. They always think that people commit suicide for a reason. But one can very well commit suicide for two reasons. No, that idea doesn’t enter their heads. So what’s the use of dying voluntarily and sacrificing oneself to the idea that you want to give of yourself? Once you’re dead, they’ll take the opportunity to assign idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. My dear friend, martyrs should choose to be forgotten, mocked or exploited. As for being understood, never. (Location 620)

In short, the moment that I perceived that there was something to be judged in me, I realized that they had an irresistible urge to judge. (Location 644)

You are only excused for happiness and success if you generously agree to share them. But if one is to be happy, one should not worry too much about other people – which means that there is no way out. Happy and judged or absolved and miserable. (Location 658)

So much so that we rarely confide in those who are better than we are; rather, we avoid their company. Most of the time, on the contrary, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. This means that we do not want to correct ourselves or to be improved: for that, first of all, we should have to be judged and found wanting. All we need is to be pitied and encouraged in our course. In short, we would like at the same time to be no longer guilty and not to make the effort to purify ourselves. Not enough cynicism, not enough virtue. We have neither the energy of evil nor that of good. (Location 686)

What we call elementary truths are the ones that we discover after the rest, that’s all. (Location 697)

However that may be, in the course of an extensive study of myself, I have laid bare the duplicity of the human animal. By searching through my memory, I realized that modesty helped me to shine, humility to triumph and virtue to oppress. I made war by peaceful means and in the end obtained all that I desired through unselfishness. (Location 697)

There is one, but it is so feeble that I can’t imagine using it. In any case, here it is: I have never been able to believe, deep inside, that human affairs are serious matters. (Location 714)

Of course, I did sometimes pretend to be taking life seriously. But the frivolity of seriousness itself very quickly became apparent to me and I merely continued to play my role as best I could. I played at being efficient, intelligent, righteous, a concerned citizen, indignant, indulgent, supportive, a good example (Location 720)

To be honest, alcohol and women have given me the only release I deserved. I am entrusting this secret to you, dear friend; don’t be afraid to make use of it; then you will see that true debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligation. In it, one possesses only oneself, so it remains the chosen occupation of those who are great lovers of their own persons. It is a jungle, with no future or past, above all with no promises or immediate sanctions. (Location 854)

The only benefit of that experience, when I gave up my nocturnal exploits, was that life became less painful to me. The fatigue that was eating away at my body had at the same time worn down much of my sensitivity. Every excess decreases vitality, and thus suffering. There is nothing frenzied about debauchery, despite what people believe. It is merely a prolonged sleep. You may have noticed that a man who really suffers from jealousy cannot wait to sleep with the woman, despite believing that she has betrayed him. (Location 869)

Of course, what he wants is to make sure once again that his precious treasure still belongs to him. He wishes to possess it, as people say. But it’s also because immediately afterwards, he feels less jealous. Actually, physical jealousy is an effect of imagination at the same time as a judgement against oneself. We attribute the same bad thoughts to our rival as we ourselves have had in those circumstances. Fortunately, an excess of pleasure (Location 872)

Yes, my dear fellow, bourgeois marriage has put slippers on the country and will soon take it to the doors of death. (Location 878)

In any case, we cannot be certain of anyone’s innocence, while we can confidently pronounce everyone guilty. Each man bears witness to the crime of all the others: this is my faith and hope. (Location 912)

At the end of every freedom there is a sentence, which is why freedom is too heavy to bear, (Location 1105)

Ah, my dear fellow, for anyone who is alone, recognizing neither god nor master, the weight of days is awful. So one must choose a master, God being out of fashion now. Besides, the word no longer has any meaning; it’s not worth the risk of shocking anyone. (Location 1107)

You can see the advantage, I’m sure. The more I accuse myself, the more I have the right to judge you. Better still: I incite you to judge yourself, which relieves me by that much more. (Location 1169)