“Life. As solid and as strong as a rock one minute, then hanging by a thread the next”

“perhaps that's the secret. Perhaps what people should really ask is, "are you content?" It's about getting in touch with reality. About balancing aspirations and actuality.”

“In a world of fixed future, life is an infinite corridor of rooms, one room lit at each moment, the next room dark but prepared. We walk from room to room, look into the room that is lit, the present moment, then walk on. We do not know the rooms ahead, but we know we cannot change them. We are spectators of our lives.”

“And that next day, he was in the black mood, what we call the swartgalligheid, which is the black gall. And the heart is black too, and the world is black, and one can tell oneself that it will pass, but these are only words that one speaks to oneself, for while it is there it is no comfort that it will pass.”

“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”

“And, with much of Europe occupied by Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's armies in Albania, on the Greek frontier, one wasn't sure what came next. So, don't trust the telephone. Or the newspapers. Or the radio. Or tomorrow.”

“Well, he thought, one did what one had to do, so life went. No, one did what one had to do in order to do what one wanted to do - so life really went.”