We are cruel when someone refuses to play the role in which we have cast him. We judge a person only according to his relationship towards us.

Coming near him like a ballet dancer she took a leap towards him, and he, frightened by her vehemence, and fearing that she would crash against him, instinctively became absolutely rigid, and she felt herself embracing a statue.

There is no denying that we are suffering from a collective neurosis and the novel which does not face this is not a novel of our time.

There is no bleaker moment in life of the city than that one which crosses the boundary lines between those who have not slept all night and those who are going to work. It was for Sabina as if two races of men and women lived on earth, the night people and the day people, never meeting face to face except at this moment.

Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensable as poetry.

... and the very folds of the curtains contained secrets and sighs.

We do not see the world as it is. We see the word as we are.