“Life went on whether people participated in it or not”
“Sometimes people use thought to not participate in life.”
“We just went out for dinner. We didn't participate in a Roman orgy, I swear.”
“Life is for participating, not for spectating.”
“I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.”
“I had always felt that I was an observer, never a participant; that I was watching from behind a thick glass wall as people went about the business of living--and did it with such ease, with a skill that they took for granted and that I had never known.”