A 'modern' man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.
His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations.
People's fates are simplified by their names.
It is important to say all the great thoughts again, without knowing that they have already been said.
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.
Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days