"And here they were, dazed and baffled, embedded for one more moment in a life which they no longer know how to use" (Sartre, The Reprieve, 375)

"A vast entity, a planet, in a space of a hundred million dimensions: three-dimensional beings could not so much as imagine it. And yet each dimension was an autonomous consciousness. Try to look directly at the planet, it would disintegrate into tiny fragments, and nothing but consciousness would be left. A hundred million free consciousnesses, each aware of walls, the glowing stump of a cigar, familiar faces, and each constructing its destiny on its own responsibility. And yet, each of those consciousnesses, by imperceptible contacts and insensible changes, realizes its existence as a cell in a gigantic and invisible coral. (Sartre, The Reprieve, 277)