“We were born alone and we will die alone. But, while we are on this planet, we must accept and glorify our act of faith through other people. Community is life: from it comes our capacity for survival. That is how it was when we lived in caves and so it is today.”

“Possibly. Basically,everything that happens in our life is our fault and ours alone. A lot of people go through the same difficulties we went through, and they react completely differently. We looked for the easiest way out: a separate reality.”

“Our contradictions. We are in such a hurry to grow up, and then we long for our lost childhood. We make ourselves ill earning money, and then spend all our money on getting well again. We think so much about the future that we neglect the present, and thus experience neither the present nor the future. We live as if we were never going to die, and die as if we had never lived.”

“From the moment we are born, people tell us that the world is like this and like that, this way, that way. It is natural that - for a certain period of time - we end up believing what we are told. But we must soon push these ideas aside and discover our own way of living reality.”

“We must love because we are loved by God. We must be conscious of death if we are to have a proper understanding of life. We must struggle in order to grow, but without falling into the trap of the power we gain through that struggle, because we know that power is worthless. Finally, we must accept that our eternal soul is, at this moment, caught in the web of time with all its opportunities and its limitations.”

“If we are alone, we become more alone. Life is strange”

“The all-powerful Zahir seemed to be born with every human being and to gain full strength in childhood, imposing rules that would thereafter always be respected:People who are different are dangerous; they belong to another tribe; they want our lands and our women.We must marry, have children, reproduce the species.Love is only a small thing, enough for one person, and any suggestion that the heart might be larger than this may seem perverse.When we are married we are authorised to take possession of the other person, body and soul.We must do jobs we detest because we are part of an organised society, and if everyone did what they wanted to do, the world would come to a standstill.We must buy jewelry; it identifies us with our tribe.We must be amusing at all times and sneer at those who express their real feelings; it's dangerous for a tribe to allow its members to show their feelings.We must at all costs avoid saying no because people prefer those who always say yes, and this allows us to survive in hostile territory.What other people think is more important than what we feel.Never make a fuss--it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.If you behave differently you will be expelled from the tribe because you could infect others and destroy something that was extremely difficult to organise in the first place.We must always consider the look of our new cave, and if we don't have a clear idea of our own, then we must call a decorator who will do his best to show others what good taste we have.We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving.We must dress according to the dictates of fashion, make love whether we feel like it or not, kill in the name of our country, wish time away so that retirement comes more quickly, elect politicians, complain about the cost of living, change our hair-style, criticise anyone who is different, go to a religious service on Sunday, Saturday or Friday, depending on our religion, and there beg forgiveness for our sins and puff ourselves up with pride because we know the truth and despise he other tribe, who worship false gods.Our children must follow in our footsteps; after all we are older and know more about the world.We must have a university degree even if we never get a job in the area of knowledge we were forced to study. We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy. We must play music quietly, talk quietly, weep in private, because I am the all-powerful Zahir, who lays down the rules and determines the meaning of success, the best way to love, the importance of rewards.”