Eros, Death, and Ecstasy

Eroticism, it may be said, is assenting to life up to the point of death.

With the presentation of this over-all picture as my starting point, nothing has intrigued me more than the idea of once more coming across the image that haunted my adolescence, the image of God. This is certainly not a return to the faith of my youth. But human passion has only one object in this forlorn world of ours. The paths we take towards it may vary. The object itself has a great variety of aspects, but we can only make out their significance by seeing how closely they are knit at the deepest level.

—Georges Bataille, Eroticism, Death, and Sensuality