. . .sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that?" “Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.

I could tell you it's the heart, but what is really killing him is loneliness. Memories are worse than bullets.

Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.

One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julian, even if one isn’t aware of it.

I wandered off, walking through streets that seemed emptier than ever, thinking that if I didn't stop, if I kept on walking, I wouldn't notice that the world I thought I knew was no longer there.

I decided that my existence would be one of books and silence.

All true stories begin and end in a cemetery" - The Shadow of the Wind