“The fact of being alive compensated for what life did to one.”

“...what was important, what mattered, was not the fact of being afraid, but what you did, the choices you made, when you were afraid. And maybe that was something to do with being alive--or staying dead.”

“Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.”

“I was on the verge of ruin but well-compensated by the miracle of still being alive at my age.”

“The fact that people were attentive to his body does not compensate for their ignoring his being.”

“The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is in fact an intensification of life a completeness a fullness a wholeness of life.”