From the journals of Albert Camus

"Also important is the theme of performing for others. What rescues us from our worst sorrows is the feeling of being abandoned and alone, yet not so alone that "others" do not "take notice" of us in our unhappiness. It is in the sense that our moments of happiness are sometimes those when the feeling that we are abandoned inflates us and lifts us into an endless sadness. In the sense also that happiness often is no more than self-pity for our unhappiness.

Striking among the poor--God put resignation alongside despair like the cure alongside the disease.

When I was young, I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling.
Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone."