Meursault And The Sun Quotes

We [Raymond and Meursault] stared at each other without blinking, and everything came to a stop there between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot.

The sun was overwhelming, like a heavenly accusation.

Technically, the killing itself is due either to the sun or to pure idleness.

So for me Meursault is not a reject, but a poor and naked man, in love with a sun which leaves no shadows. Far from lacking all sensibility, he is driven by a tenacious and therefore profound passion, the passion for an absolute and for truth.

I remember the road to Hadjout, lined with fields whose crops weren’t destined for us, and the naked sun, and the other travelers on the dusty bus. The oil fumes nauseated me, but I loved the virile, almost comforting roar of the engine, like a kind of father that was snatching us, my mother and me, out of an immense labyrinth made up of buildings, downtrodden people, shantytowns, dirty urchins, aggressive cops, and beaches fatal to Arabs. For the two of us, the city would always be the scene of the crime, or the place where something pure and ancient was lost. Yes, Algiers, in my memory, is a dirty, corrupt creature, a dark, treacherous man-stealer.

The night has just turned the sky’s head toward infinity. When the sun’s not there to blind you, what you’re looking at is God’s back. Silence. I hate that word. Its multiple definitions make a lot of noise. Every time the world falls silent, the sound of raspy breathing comes back to my memory.

The sun was overwhelming, like a heavenly accusation. It shattered into needles on the sand and on the sea but never ever flagged.

Committing a real murder gives one some new, clear-cut certitudes. Read what your hero wrote about his stay in a prison cell. I often reread that passage myself, it’s the most interesting part of his whole hodgepodge of sun and salt. When your hero’s in his cell, that’s when he’s best at asking the big questions.