At that moment he knew what his mother was thinking, and that she loved him. But he knew, too, that to love someone means relatively little; or, rather, that love is never strong enough to find the words befitting it. Thus he and his mother would always love each other silently. And one day she--or he--would die, without ever, all their lives long, having gone farther than this by way of making their affection known.

They hurt each other without wanting to, just because each represented to the others the cruel and demanding necessity of their lives.

I was always able to understand my friend who decided to quit smoking and who, through an effort of will, succeeded in doing so. One morning, he opened the newspaper, read that the first H- bomb had exploded, found out about the bomb's admirable effects and went straight to the tobacconist's.

[Love] is the type of disease that spares neither the intelligent nor the idiotic.

What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.

And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.