If there were any books that made an impression so strong, it would be this! Prior to reading Carnets,1942-1951, I had a faint inkling of Camus as the author of ‘The outsider’. This book here, which was a notebook with his rough ideas/sketches for his novels is an extremely rich source of quotes and an insight into his mind.
When he writes somewhere, ‘If there were no passion, there would be no virtue, and yet our century has reached this supreme misery where it lacks both passion and virtue; it does good and evil, passive as matter itself’ – he is writing not only of his time back then, but something that we know is relevant and reflects today’s living from the 21st century.
He quotes Delacroix, Keats, Chesterton, Tolstoy, Dostoievski, Gobineau, Richelieu, Stendhal and one realizes how little we’ve read and know of this world.
Self reflection: I have tried with all my strength, knowing my weakness, to be a moral person. Morality kills.
To live is to verify.
Albert Camus made me reflect on the way I’ve lived so far.
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