أليس غريباً أن نمضى حياتنا ونحن نفكر بالأشياء التى نحب أن نفعلها ولا نستطيع - George Orwell

The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.

Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the Earth goes round the Sun; today, to believe the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him; the horror was that he might also be wrong.

The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.