The man in ecstasy and the man drowning: both raise their arms.

He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. He still saw that outside the window everything was beginning to grow light. Then, without his consent, his head sank down to the floor, and from his nostrils streamed his last weak breath.

Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived.

There's no quiet place here on earth for our love, not in the village and not anywhere else, so I picture a grave, deep and narrow, in which we embrace as if clamped together, I bury my face against you, you yours against me, and no one will ever see us.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

Maybe innocence makes its way easiest through the elemental chaos of this world.