Hazard has conditioned us to live in hazard. All our pleasures are dependent on it. Even though I arrange for a pleasure, and look forward to it, my eventual enjoyment of it is still a matter of hazard. Wherever time passes, there is hazard.

Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.

Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is.

To despise all effort is the greatest effort of all.

The world began in hazard and will end in it.

The pronoun is one of the most terrifying masks man has invented.

The noblest relationship is marriage, that is, love. Its nobility resides in its altruism, the desire to serve another beyond all the pleasures of the relationship; and in its refusal ever to regard the other as a thing, an object, a utilizability. Sex is an exchange of pleasures, of needs; love is a giving without return. It is this giving without return, this helping without reward, this surplus of pure good, that identifies the uniqueness of man as well as the true nature of the true marriage. This is the quintessence the great alchemy of sex is for.