[...] don't expect that this reflection-witnessing-voyage will make for facile reading, in a day or even in a month. It is not intended for the reader who wishes to come to the end of it as quickly as possible. One can't really speak of "endings", much less "conclusions" in a work like Récoltes et Semailles, no more than one finds such things in my life or in yours.
Think of it like a wine fermented in the depths of someone's being for a lifetime. The last glass will be neither better nore worse than the first, or the hundredth. They are all alike, and they are all completely different. And if the first goblet is spoiled, the whole vat from which it comes is likewise spoiled. Far better to drink good water than bad wine!
Yet, when one finds a good wine, it is best to sip it slowly, and not when one is one the run.
Alexander Groethendieck. Récoltes et Semailles. 1986. Page 6 in the online edition of the translation by Roy Lisker.