Lara walked along the tracks following a path worn by pilgrims and then turned into the fields. Here she stopped and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath of the flower-scented air of the broad expanse around her. It was dearer to her than her kin, better than a lover, wiser than a book. For a moment she rediscovered the purpose of her life. She was here on earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name, or, if this were not within her power, to give birth out of love for life to successors who would do it in her place.

How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?

I hate everything you say, but not enough to kill you for it.

An unshared happiness is not happiness.

Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

They don't ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.

But the division in him was a sorrow and a torment, and he became accustomed to it only as one gets used to an unhealed and frequently reopened wound.