The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death.

Whether there is such a thing as Reality, of which the various levels are only partial aspects, or whether there are only levels, is something that literature cannot decide. Literature recognizes rather the *reality of the levels.*

This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition. But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts, and each of these new facts bring with it consequences; so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out, the further I move away from it. . . .

The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.

Work stops at sunset. Darkness falls over the building site. The sky is filled with stars. "There is the blueprint," they say.