"It was in the opening pages of the latter book, with its promising title, that I was first confronted by the question Why is there something rather than nothing at all?" (Chapter 1, 4)

"Are we then doomed to choose between God and the deep brute Absurd?" (Chapter 1, 8)

"The motives for pursuing the mystery of existence are not just intellectual ones. They are also emotional." (Chapter 2, 30)

"But that, of course, presumes there is Nothing to start with." (Interlude, 40)

"The virtues of the Null World are manifold and undeniable when you think about them, but they only serve to make the mystery of existence all the more mysterious." (Chapter 3, 62)

"There is no mystery of existence." (Chapter 4, 63)

"The temporal finitude of our universe—here today (but not yesterday), gone tomorrow—makes its existence seem all the more insecure and contingent. And mysterious." (Chapter 5, 81)

"There was something numinous in his logic...