- Jean-Dominique Bauby: I decided to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren't paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.
- Dr. Lepage: We want you to take it easy for a few days.
- Jean-Dominique Bauby: What do you think I'm doing now?
- Jean-Dominique Bauby: Like a sailor seeing the shore disappear, I watch my past recede, reduced to the ashes of memory.
- [last lines]
- Céline: Bauby, 43, a renowned journalist, family man and free spirit, was planning a book about female revenge.
- Papinou: Having a mistress is no excuse for leaving the mother of your children; the world has lost its values.