Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

     "Do you believe in omens?"
     "Neither in omens nor in gods, only in mankind who invented everything, including gods and everything else."

     "I no longer struggle against anything except suffering and stupidity."

     "Vote against rather than for, then you'll see."

     "The grandeur of the human race resides indeed in doing the opposite of what is determined by statistics, that debased form of mathematics. Alas, the human race is becoming more and more devoid of fantasy, and statistics are more frequently correct."

     "I've always thought there's only one-way to live: by taking a sufficient interest in a certain number of activities so as to forget the utter unimportance of our existence. By activities I mean amorous intrigues, social ambition, war, the quest for power or money, in short anything that can be acquired by power. Everyone must make his own choice according to his own strength and the weakness of others."

     "I only respect individuals, never a type, a species or a sect of mankind."

     "What an ass that fellow Freud is. It's not sex that makes the world go round, but possessiveness and fear. It's with silence, solitude and liberty that fear carries most weight. Silence and solitude lead to reflection, liberty provides the leisure for it, and leisure, when unconfined, inevitably leads us to pursue this reflection to its utmost limits. In the process we stumble against a heap of sordid little commonplaces; we are born by mere chance in the great lottery of chromosomes; we accept or reject laws, opinions and moral precepts only in the name of this mixture of hereditary genes which caused us to be born a white man among Negroes, a Negro among white men, a pauper among the wealthy, young among the elderly, sound of health among the diseased.
     To allay this fear, to forget that we are nothing but a patch of mildew on the surface of a sphere, what are we given? Commotion, vanity and a few drugs; conspiracies, girls, alcohol, literature or magic, mathematics or religion, smuggling, shooting duck at dusk when the sun's blood congeals and darkens, tickling trout or laying nets in rivers where fishing is forbidden, gambling and staking more than one can afford… not to mention even more futile occupations such as stamp collecting or butterfly hunting. The pursuit of power is perhaps what occupies us most. It is not at all easy to assemble a mob and make a political party out of it, to provide it with a banner and the rancours and hopes, which that entails. It needs a lot of shouting and swearing and a punch in the belly, the region where the heart is to be found. It needs a god kick in the arse, the area where honor and virility are situated. I, Sebastian Josc, have never felt the urge for power, out of laziness perhaps; and; being a doctor, I learnt at the Faculty that all men are alike; a few proteins and a few pints of water, some fragile nerve centers, acquired reflexes and automatic secretions. At the age of thirty-four, scarred all over in heart and body, weary of traveling, of tropical decay and swarming masses, of colonial wars, liberation movements, epidemics and periodical famines, I have decided to face my fear, to recover my liberty, to brave silence and solitude. I know where to find them - at home, at Sauveterre."

     "One can't go on engaging in civil war forever. Even the Russians, even the Chinese have their stability. They may cause havoc in their countries, but they want law and order in their own."

     "That sense of sin which all Christians who have lost their faith insist on preserving!"

     "I live for the moment. I have no past."

     "You don't have friends in politics; you only have connections and people under an obligation."

     "The vanquished always ends up by racketeering, eating tripe with the enemy and slapping him on the back, where he will one day stick a knife into him."

     "Yes they certainly belong to the same race, these regular army officers in any country, defenders of the middle class and its privileges, of everything that is bound to die but still clings to life."