If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn't simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction.

As soon as there is language, generality has entered the scene.

The circle of the return to birth can only remain open, but this is a chance, a sign of life, and a wound.

I never give in to the temptation to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult. That would be too ridiculous.

These years of the Ecole Normale were an ordeal. Nothing was handed to me on the first try.

There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.

To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.