I recognize that quote -- gave me a chuckle too. And I prefer your paraphrase (which I just now misspelled as parapharse aka parafarce!) to the original:

"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
-- Erich Fromm

But then I was glad to find a corrolary Fromm quote, which will no doubt drive Randy and me batshit (not that we're not already batshit):

"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
-- Erich Fromm