" Well, was it especially necessary for people to be impassioned, carried away by hatred or love, for example; or did the exterior aspect of the event have to be great, I mean—what you could see of it. . . .”
“Both . . . it all depended,” she answers ungraciously.
“And the perfect moments? Where do they come in?”
“They came afterwards. First there are annunciatory signs. Then the privileged situation, slowly, majestically, comes into people’s lives. Then the question whether you want to make a perfect moment out of it.”
“Yes,” I say, “I understand. In each one of these privileged situations there are certain acts which have to be done, certain attitudes to be taken, words which must be said—and other attitudes, other words are strictly prohibited. Is that it?”
“I suppose so. . . .”
“In fact, then, the situation is the material: it demands exploitation.”
“That’s it,” she says. “First you had to be plunged into something exceptional and feel as though you were putting it in order. If all those conditions had been realized, the moment would have been perfect.”
“In fact, it was a sort of work of art.”
“You’ve already said that,” she says with irritation. “No: it was . . . a duty. You had to transform privileged situations into perfect moments. It was a moral question. Yes, you can laugh if you like: it was moral. "

― Jean-Paul Sartre , Nausea