I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.

More from Meursault in The Stranger

• Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.
• A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.
• A sub-clerk in the post office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness is common to them.
• But perhaps the great work of art has less importance in itself than in the ordeal it demands of a man and the opportunity it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality.
• Don’t walk in front of me because I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me because I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
• For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.