“They were lonely and sad people, all three of them, and they would not make one another less sad, but they could, with great care, make a world that would accommodate their loneliness.”

“Human beings, in point of fact, are lonely by nature, and one should feel sorry for them and love them and mourn with them. It is certain that people would understand one another better and love one another more if they would admit to one another how lonely they were, how sad they were in their tormented, anxious longings and feeble hopes.”

“...Maybe this was another reason why people read: not so that they would feel less lonely, but so that other people would think they looked less lonely with a book in their hands and therefore not pity them and leave them alone.”

“...to make art is to realize another's sadness within, realize the hidden sadness in other people's lives, to feel sad with and for a stranger.”

“Which one of them would make you the most sad if you had to live your life without him?”

“If there were nothing else to trouble us, the fate of the flowers would make us sad.”