What you don't understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.

Man is born to live, not to prepare for life.

I have been writing in spurts, bit by bit. It is incredibly difficult. Everything is corroded, broken, dismantled; everything is covered with hardened layers of accumulated insensitivity, deafness, entrenched routine. It is disgusting.

Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.

As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.

And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?

All mothers are mothers of great people, and it is not their fault that life later disappoints them.