“It is curious how little interested we are in the sexual desires of those who do not attract us.”

“We live by action—by acting on desire. Those of us who don't know how to want—whether geniuses or beggars—are related by impotence.”

“The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.”

“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”

“The true test of faith is how we treat those who can do nothing for us in return.”

“As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of War our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence.”