“All writers must go from now to once upon a time; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.”

“Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.”

“How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word.”

“We're all watching him. It's the one thing we can really do, and it is not for nothing: if he were to falter, fail, or die, what would become of us? No wonder he's like a boot, hard on the outside, giving shape to a pulp of tenderfoot. That's just a wish. I've been watching him for some time and he's given no evidence, of softness.But watch out, Commander, I tell him in my head. I've got my eye on you. One false move and I'm dead.Still, it must be hell, to be a man, like that.It must be just fine.It must be hell.It must be very silent.”

“As it says in the Bible, For now we through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. If it is face to face, there must be two looking.”

“All Creatures know that some must dieThat all the rest may take and eat;Sooner or later, all transformTheir blood to wine, their flesh to meat.But Man alone seeks Vengefulness,And writes his abstract Laws on stone;For this false Justice he has made,He tortures limb and crushes bone.Is this the image of a god?My tooth for yours, your eye for mine?Oh, if Revenge did move the starsInstead of Love, they would not shine.”

“An old walrus-faced waiter attended to me; he had the knack of pouring the coffee and the hot milk from two jugs, held high in the air, and I found this entrancing, as if he were a child's magician. One day he said to me - he had some English - "Why are you sad?""I'm not sad," I said, and began to cry. Sympathy from strangers can be ruinous."You should not be sad," he said, gazing at me with his melancholy, leathery walrus eyes. "It must be the love. But you are young and pretty, you will have time to be sad later." The French are connoisseurs of sadness, they know all the kinds. This is why they have bidets. "It is criminal, the love," he said, patting my shoulder. "But none is worse.”