“...yarının daima bugün olduğunu görmüyor musunuz?”

“Lá fora o mundo ruge ou dorme, as guerras se inflamam, os homens vivem e morrem, as nações perecem, outras surgem e breve serão tragadas, e em todo esse barulho e todo esse furor, nessas erupções e nessas ressacas - enquanto o mundo vai, se inflama, se dilacera e renasce -, agita-se a vida humana.Então, bebamos uma xícara de chá.” (p. 95).”

“There was only one thing I wanted: to be left alone, without too many demand upon my person, so that for a few moments each day I might be allowed to assuage my hunger.”

“Papa is just a kid who's playing the dead serious grown-up.”

“I won't get any better by punishing the people I can't heal.”

“Here are all these people, full of heartache or hatred or desire, and we all have our troubles and the school year is filled with vulgarity and triviality and consequence, and there are all these teachers and kids of every shape and size, and there's this life we're struggling through full of shouting and tears and fights and break-ups and dashed hopes and unexpected luck -- it all disappears, just like that, when the choir begins to sing. Everyday life vanishes into song, you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion.”

“... we absolutely mustn't forget it. We mustn't forget old people with their rotten bodies, old people who are so close to death, something that young people don't want to think about (so it is to retirement homes that they entrust the care of accompanying their parents to the threshold, with no fuss or bother). And where's the joy in these final hours they ought to be making the most of? They're spent in boredom and bitterness, endlessly revisiting memories. We mustn't forget that our bodies decline, friends die, everyone forgets about us, and the end is solitude. Nor must we forget that these old people were young once, that a lifespan is pathetically short, that one day you're twenty and the next day you're eighty.”