“Sooner or later...one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.”

“...every monologue sooner or later becomes a discussion.”

“One can't love humanity. One can only love people.”

“Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn’t love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.”

“It seemed after all that one never really missed a thing. To be a human being one had to drink the cup. If one were lucky on one day, or cowardly on another, it was presented on a third occasion.”

“So one always starts a journey in a strange land -- taking too many precautions, until one tires of the exertion and abandons care in the worst spot of all.”

“Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.”