“I was not alone in the human condition.”

“Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.”

“in addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origins notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes the character of a condition of human existence. this is why men, no matter what they do, are always conditioned beings. whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition. ”

“Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.”

“As I come to understand Vietnam and what it implies about the human condition, I also realize that few humans will permit themselves such an understanding.”

“The human condition: lost in thought.”