"Something is beginning in order for it to end: adventure does not let itself be drawn out; it only makes sense when dead. I am drawn, irrevocably, towards this death which is perhaps mine as well. Each instant appears only as a part of a sequence. I cling to each instant with all my heart: I know that it is unique, irreplaceable- and yet I would not raise a finger to stop it from being annihilated. This last moment I am spending- in Berlin, in London- in the arms of a woman casually met two days ago- moment I love passionately, woman I may adore- all is going to end, I know it. Soon I shall leave for another country. I shall never rediscover either this woman or this night. I grasp each second, trying to suck it dry: nothing happens which I do not seize, which I do not fix forever within myself, nothing, neither the fugitive tenderness of those lovely eyes, nor the noises in the street, nor the false dawn of an early morning; and even so the minute passes and I do not hold back, I like to see it pass."
- Jean Paul Sartre, Nausea, 1938, p 37-8
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