“A bunch of silly men chasing a ball" my mother says "give each one his own ball if they're so desperate to have one”

“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”

“Look beyond that light,' says my father. 'Look hard and you'll see people filing into the theater. You'll see ushers run up and down the aisles; people talk, programs rustle-you'll hear a murmur. When the lights start to dim, the murmur rises, and then, just a moment before the curtain goes up, the noise stops-everyone in the house holds their breath, everyone knows what is going to happen. This is the moment I've always loved most:the anticipation of magic, the expectation of illusion.”

“One day the keys will unlock the pathways of mysteries”

“After the masquerade, if we had found each other, if I had asked it of you, would you have taken me as your lover?”She closed her eyes, but it only made her more acutely aware of his hands moving down to caress her arms. She couldn’t think. Why did he ask? Would a lie be kinder than the truth? Everything was blurring.“Yes.”

“The rules say that to tell a story you need first of all a measuring stick, a calendar, you have to calculate how much time has passed between you and the facts, the emotions to be narrated.”

“Hortensio finishes reading the letter and puts it back into his shell. Then he makes himself even more comfortable on his leaves, looking at the starry sky, at how clear it was, as he could see it through the window of the room, and felt proud and happy. I mean, after all, how many can say that they have colored the world with their own colors?”