“I still thought that to get something you had to go straight for your goal whereas it is only distractions, uncertainty, distance that bring us closer to our targets, and then it is the targets which strike us.”

“Inside, a mother superior, ethereal, delicate, who took me under her wing. She caressed me with her slender, soft hands, she sat next to me as if I were a friend. One day she disappeared. In her place arrived a buxom Swiss from Canton Uri. It's common knowledge that a new leader will hate the predecessors' favourites. A boarding school is like a harem.”

“There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public.There are worse things than these miniature betrayals,committed or endured or suspected; there are worse thingsthan not being able to sleep for thinking about them.It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking inand stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.”

“It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.-From the poem Fear”

“When I’d confronted him, he’d left me and, like a parasite finding a fresh host, moved in with her.”

“If your enemy offers you two targets, strike at a third.”

“Keep your eye on the goal, keep moving toward your target.”