“Why would a man not argue his own shameful culpability, why would he not crave responsibility for disaster, when the alternative was to feel himself to be nothing more than a speck of human dust?”

“Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.”

“By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”

“Remember your grandfather's last words, Jonah would tell his children: Life is nothing more than a little why.”

“Why was his grief more powerful than his love? Why couldn't he find it within himself to fight back?Why am I not enough to live for?”

“An exceedingly confident student would in theory make a terrible student. Why would he take school seriously when he feels that he can outwit his teachers?”