The essence of the book is about finding your way, your path. It challenges what we considered unquestionable, such as our perception of nature and ourselves. Ultimately, this process should lead to an awakening: I believe the book aims to spark contemplation on truly living in alignment with the certainty of death.

“I already know that you think you are rotten”, he said. “That’s your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to recommend that you learn another doing. From now on, and for a period of eight days, I want you to lie to yourself. Instead of telling yourself the truth, that you are ugly and rotten and inadequate, you will tell yourself that you are the complete opposite, knowing that you are lying and that you are absolutely beyond hope.” — “But what would be the point of lying like that, don Juan?” — “It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the not-doing of the self.”

Some other interesting quotes:

• What stopped inside you yesterday was what people have been telling you the world is like. You see, people tell us from the time we are born that the world is such and such and so and so, and naturally we have no choice but to see the world the way people have been telling us it is.
• No. It isn’t if you are going to be immortal, but if you are going to die there is no time for timidity, simply because timidity makes you cling to something that exists only in your thoughts. It soothes you while everything is at a lull, but then the awesome, mysterious world will open its mouth for you, as it will open for every one of us, and then you will realize that your sure ways were not sure at all. Being timid prevents us from examining and exploiting our lot as men.
• First of all, you went to the party to kill time, as though there is any time to kill.

New words:

1. milieu = a person's social environment. "Gregory came from the same aristocratic milieu as Sidonius”
2. incessantly = without interruption; constantly. "she talked about him incessantly”
3. portentous = of or like a portent; of momentous significance. "this portentous year in Canadian history"
4. full-fledged = completely developed or established; fully fledged. "symptoms that never quite develop into full-fledged colds”
5. elucidate = make (something) clear; explain. "work such as theirs will help to elucidate this matter”
6. contention = heated disagreement. "the captured territory was the main area of contention between the two countries”
7. skid row = a desperately unfortunate or difficult situation. "with no money to spend, the club are on skid row”
8. fright = a sudden intense feeling of fear. "I jumped up in fright”
9. pitting = set someone or something in conflict or competition with. "you'll get the chance to pit your wits against the world champions”
10. peyote = a small soft blue-green spineless cactus, native to Mexico and the southern US. a hallucinogenic drug prepared from the peyote cactus, containing mescaline.
11. harangues = a lengthy and aggressive speech. "they were subjected to a ten-minute harangue by two border guards”
12. anthropology = the study of human societies and cultures and their development. "they examine lesser-known findings in archaeology and anthropology to highlight all that we don't know about human history”