Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

I thought I am kissing pain and pain belongs to You as happiness never does. I love You in Your pain. I could almost taste metal and salt in the skin, and I thought, How good you are. You might have killed us with happiness, but You let us be with You in pain.

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?

Failure too is a form of death.

The border means more than a customs house, a passport officer, a man with a gun. Over there everything is going to be different; life is never going to be quite the same again after your passport has been stamped.

Friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something.