"To speak this absence is from the start to propose that the subject's place and the other's place cannot permute; it is to say: 'I am loved less than I love.'" Page 13.

"The discourse of Absence is a text with two ideograms: there are the raised arms of Desire and the wide-open arms of Need. I oscillate, I vacillate between the phallic image of the raise arms, and the babyish image of the wide-open arms.)" Page 16.

"I encounter millions of bodies in my life; of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of these hundreds, I love only one. The other with whom I am in love designates for me the specialty of my desire. Page 19.

"[The heart] refers to all kinds of movements and desires, but what is constant is that the heart is constituted into a gift-object—whether ignored or rejected." Page 52.

"The...