Precondition for the Home

For the intimacy of recollection to be able to be produced . . . the presence of the Other must not only be revealed in the face which breaks through its own plastic image, but must be revealed, simulatneously with this presence, in its withdrawal and in its absence. . . . And the other whose presence is discreetly an absence, with which is accomplished the primary hospitable welcome which describes the field of intimacy, is the Woman. The woman is the condition for recollection, the interiority of the Home and inhabitation.

- Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity