“My day had already had a good dose of bitterness, and I preferred to keep it from getting any sadder.”

“... Full of old cockatoos who used to be rich and aren't any longer, but they cling to yesterday tooth and nail, preferring to live on bread and sardines rather than sell what little they have left of their faded glory.”

“Normality wasn't in the days I'd left behind me: it was only to be found in whatever fortune placed in my path each morning.”

“He spoke with complicity, familiarly, as though he knew me; as though his soul and mine had been waiting for each other since the beginning of time.”

“... living a life filled with deprivation and working from sunrise to sunset from your earliest years isn't to anybody's taste.”

“All those invisible presences ... began to transform themselves into companions that were more or less volatile, more or less intense, companions that I'd have to learn to live with. They invaded my mind when I was alone, in the silent evenings toiling away in the workshop between patterns and bastings, when I went to bed or in the gloom of the living room ...”

“My fear didn't want to be left behind, so it came with me.”