I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.

Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.

I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

What is better than to sit at the end of the day and drink wine with friends, or substitutes for friends?

What did that mean, to kiss? You put your face up like that to say goodnight and then his mother put her face down. That was to kiss. His mother put her lips on his cheek; her lips were soft and they wetted his cheek; and they made a tiny little noise: kiss. Why did people do that with their two faces?

Let my country die for me.

It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.