I’ve learned at least that other people do exist, and that selfishness, although it cannot be denied, must try to be clear-sighted. To enjoy only oneself is impossible, I know, although I have great gifts in this direction. If solitude exists, and I don’t know if it does, one should certainly have the right to dream of it occasionally as paradise. I do from time to time, like everyone else. Yet two tranquil angels have always kept me from that paradise: one has a friend’s face, the other an enemy’s. Yes, I know all this and I’ve also learned or nearly learned the price of love.

— Albert Camus, from the preface to The Wrong Side and the Right Side