But nothing exists in the future; it is empty; one might die at any minute.

A man who has never been hungry may possess a more refined palate, but he has no idea what it means to eat.

In a world full of war, famine, oppression, deceit, monotony, what—apart from the eternal innocence of animals—offers an image of hope? A mother with a newborn child in her arms? The child may end up as a murderer or a murder victim, so that the hopeful image is a prefiguration of a pietà: a mother with her newly dead child on her lap.

Using someone's name during a conversation was like a casual caress, like stroking their hair.

If written in the three-letter words of the four-letter alphabet,a human being is determined by a genetic narrative long enough to fill the equivalent of 500 Bibles.In the meantime human beings have discovered this for themselves. That's right. They have uncovered our profoundest concept -- namely, that life is ultimately reading. They themselves are the Book of Books.

If you find life absurd, shouldn’t you find death precisely meaningful?

I'm afraid love is just a word.