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.

In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.

To tell the truth, this was one of the few cases in which she had not told him just what she was thinking. Usually, she let him know whatever thoughts happened to come to her, and indeed he never took it amiss if she let slip a word that might pain him, because when all was said and done that was the price one paid for sincerity.

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

Shiny musical instruments wailed, their mouths open like lilies.

A mountaineer’s house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests.