How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing. (3.7)
In case you didn't get the point, Antoine spends his life alone. The only person he really talks to is his diary… and that doesn't really count. Even though he claims to receive nothing, though, he's a very wealthy man who has obviously made his money somewhere. The fact that he is totally silent about this prevents us from judging him too much. But we might still accuse him of being a jerk when he says he "give[s] nothing." How about helping out your fellow humans, Antoine?
Quote #2
In the past—even a long while after she left me—I thought about Anny. Now I think of no one any more. (3.11)
Anny used to be the only person in the world whom Antoine cared about. But now that she has left him, he doesn't care about anyone. That's called a rough breakup… especially when you eventually fall into a full-blown mental crisis.
Quote #3
All that is nothing new; I have never resisted these harmless emotions; far from it. You must be just a little bit lonely in order to feel them. (3.15)
Loneliness can be a painful thing. But Antoine also knows that isolation is often a necessary ingredient of deep philosophical thought. If you're constantly hanging out with people and joking around, you keep yourself distracted from the truth, which according to Antoine is that life is meaningless and the people are 100% responsible for justifying everything they do.