17 July 2012

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays, Don Juanism

p73-74: We call love what binds us to certain creatures only by reference to a collective way of seeing for which books and legends are responsible.  But of love I know only that mixture of desire, affection, and intelligence that binds me to this or that creature.  That compound is not the same for another person.  I do not have the right to cover all these experiences with the same name.  This exempts one from conducting them with the same gestures.  The absurd man multiplies what he cannot unify.  Thus he discovers a new way of being which liberates those who approach him.  There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.