“The world must be all fucked up," he said then, "when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.”

“When I wake up," he said, "remind me that I'm going to marry her.”

“And only after he said it did he realize that among the countless suicides he could remember, this was the first with cyanide that had not been caused by the sufferings of love. Then something changed in the tone of his voice.“And when you do find one, observe with care,” he said to the intern:“they almost always have crystals in their heart.”

“This was his world, he said to himself, the sad, oppressive world that God had provided for him, and he was responsible to it.”

“This was when she asked him whether it was true that love conquered all, as the songs said. 'It is true', he replied, 'but you would do well not to believe it.”

“In a solemn way, as if he had just thought of it, he said: The world is moving ahead. Yes, I said, it's moving ahead, but it's revolving around the sun.”

“Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can.”