I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.

Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.

...and with a burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

Every person lives his real, most interesting life under the cover of secrecy.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you're angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you're asked.

And only now, when he was gray-haired, had he fallen in love properly, thoroughly, for the first time in his life.

I've never been in love. I've dreamt of it day and night, but my heart is like a fine piano no one can play because the key is lost.