The Plague Mortality Quotes

To Tarrou, who had shown surprise at the secluded life he led, he had given the following explanation, more or less. According to religion, the first half of a man’s life is an upgrade; the second goes downhill. One the descending days he has no claim, they may be snatched from him at any moment; thus he an do nothing with them and the best thing, precisely, is to do nothing with them. He obviously had no compunction about contradicting himself, for a few minutes later he told Tarrou that God did not exist, since otherwise there would be no need for priests. But from some observations which followed, Tarrou realized that the old fellow’s philosophy was closely involved with the irritation caused by the house-to-house collections in aid of charities, which took place almost incessantly in that part of the town. What completed the picture of the old man was a desire he expressed several times, and which seemed deeply rooted; the desire to die at a very advanced age. (2.6.21)

"In spite of the growing shortage of paper, which ash compelled some dailies to reduce their pages, a new paper has been launched: the Plague Chronicle, which sets out to inform out townspeople, with scrupulous veracity, of the daily progress or recession of the disease, to supply them with the most authoritative opinions available as to its future course. […] Actually this newspaper very soon came to devote its columns to advertisements of new, ‘infallible’ antidotes against plague. (2.6.23)

In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. (2.6.30)