{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/it-was-in-the", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/it-was-in-the.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/it-was-in-the.md", "id": "b363d029-4046-4822-b54e-1b0c91694fa7", "slug": "it-was-in-the", "text": "It was in the Passage that I discovered tribal life and learned to hate it. How happy had been the intimacy of our blind alley, now lost for good! As long as I had lived alone, I had lived in peace.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Albert Memmi", "slug": "albert-memmi", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi" }, "book": { "title": "The Pillar of Salt", "slug": "the-pillar-of-salt", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "loneliness", "slug": "loneliness", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/loneliness" }, { "name": "family", "slug": "family", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/family" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Memmi#The_Pillar_of_Salt_(1953)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:38", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "ef34abb2-01f7-42a5-945b-706c875b66f1", "slug": "if-my-nose", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/if-my-nose", "text": "If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective. My misfortunes were never chance encounters, and I could not easily avoid them. The more I get to know myself, the more aware I become of this. To put an end to this state of affairs would mean putting an end to myself, to die or to go mad. My principal's temporary appointment would end one day, but I would never find the solution to my problem because I am that problem.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "self-knowledge", "slug": "self-knowledge", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/self-knowledge" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Memmi#The_Pillar_of_Salt_(1953)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:38" }, { "id": "c71001a8-c1ba-40e7-9077-06b328e779d7", "slug": "since-that-day", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/since-that-day", "text": "Since that day, I have slowly acquired the uneasiness about my clothes that characterizes the poor who are ashamed. I was no longer at my ease in any suit: I felt that I was badly dressed and that I attracted the attention of all. I feared, even when wearing a new suit, the mockery of others at my unsuccessful attempts. That is how I became what is known as careful of my clothes.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "poverty", "slug": "poverty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poverty" }, { "name": "shame", "slug": "shame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/shame" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Memmi#The_Pillar_of_Salt_(1953)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:38" }, { "id": "71c22568-f59f-4695-b25e-e0e7016a3078", "slug": "oh-yes-poverty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-memmi/the-pillar-of-salt/oh-yes-poverty", "text": "Oh yes, poverty is something to be ashamed of, and this was clear to me from the mutterings of my own parents, from their remarks about the Oukala of the Birds and their pity for the Choulam family. As for me, I despised the poor. Fraji had to pay with shame the price of his poverty and I too, if we were poor, would have to pay with my own shame. In the disorder of my awareness, I made that day a great and unhappy step forward. I noted that I too wore new clothes only rarely and was forced to receive, like Fraji, bundles that stank of mildew and dirty linen and from which all the expensive buttons had been removed. I now understood his suffering fully, the shame that I had poured forth upon him in the presence of Chouchane and the other kids. His suffering and shame were my own too; on my own shoulders I now felt the burden of the same contempt, as if I had his hair, all clammy with filth, and his eyes like the headlights of a car. I felt that I had become Fraji.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "poverty", "slug": "poverty", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/poverty" }, { "name": "shame", "slug": "shame", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/shame" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Memmi#The_Pillar_of_Salt_(1953)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:58:38" } ] }