“Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpredictable soil of medieval Europe, modern populations have nonetheless shown a remarkable capacity to feel that neither who they are nor what they have is quite enough.”

“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”

“the world is neither meaningful, nor absurd. it quite simply is, and that, in any case, is what is so remarkable about it.”

“Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.”

“Nonetheless, we can in the same breath deny that there is any such thing as coincidence. What's done is done, what's yet to be is clearly yet to be, and so on. In other words, sandwiched as we are between the ''everything'' that is behind us and the ''zero'' beyond us, ours is an ephemeral existence in which there is neither coincidence nor possibility.”

“Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed: a passage which some have considered as a prophecy of modern journalism.”