Not a single thought managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly changed her mind as she realised that thousands of women, after a hard week's work, or a family quarrel, or even just after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort.

If an animal has to be sacrificed when a new bridge is built, what will it take to build a whole new world?

The writer is always to some extent in exile, wherever he is, because he is somehow outside, separated from others; there is always a distance.

The days were heavy and sticky. All identical, one the same as the other. Soon they would even get rid of their one remaining distinction, the shell of their names: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.

His suspicion that he was not going in the right direction tortmented him more and more. At last he had the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction, to the very end of the handful of days that was left to him, unhappy moonstruck pilgrim, whose April was to be cut off short.

Can one move an empire as if it were a house?

Can a country's people be better than its planes?