He repeated until his dying day that there was no one with more common sense, no stonecutter more obstinate, no manager more lucid or dangerous, than a poet.

There is no greater glory than to die for love.

Humanity, like armies in the field, advances at the speed of the slowest.

If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones... After all, there are better ways to starve to death.

And again, as always, after so many years we were still in the same place we always were.

She always had a headache, or it was too hot, always, or she pretended to be asleep, or she had her period again, her period, always her period. So much so that Dr. Urbino had dared to say in class, only for the relief of unburdening himself without confession, that after ten years of marriage women had their periods as often as threes times a week.

When I wake up," he said, "remind me that I'm going to marry her.