“Today it strikes me that the most important aspect of these conversations was not so much what we said as what we took for granted, and what in fact was not so at all. We were wrong about almost everything. An accurate character sketch must take these errors into account, since they expressed one kind of reality - our actual situation.”

“The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project”

“Today, however, we are having a hard time living because we are so bent on outwitting death.”

“The way I approached a question, my habit of mind, the way I looked at things, what I took for granted - all this was myself and it did not seem to me that I could alter it.”

“Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.”

“A couple who go on living together merely because that was how they began, without any other reason: was that what we were turning into?”

“It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living.”