What comfort there is in the skin of someone you love!

My rage outweighs my shame, as always happens when one is really ashamed and knows he ought to be.

Life did not intend to make us perfect. Whoever is perfect belongs in a museum.

we have so much to say, and we shall never say it.

Keep things at arm's length... If you let anything come too near you want to hold on to it. And there is nothing a man can hold on to.

The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair.

The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off.