I ask of any God, of any gods, that if they give immortality, I hope to be granted oblivion also.

The time for your labor has been granted.

My father and he had cemented one of those English friendships which begin by avoiding intimacies and eventually eliminate speech altogether.

The truth is that we live out our lives putting off all that can be put off; perhaps we all know deep down that we are immortal and that sooner or later all men will do and know all things.

Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.

Then he reflected that reality does not usually coincide with our anticipation of it; with a logic of his own he inferred that to forsee a circumstantial detail is to prevent its happening. Trusting in this weak magic, he invented, so that they would not happen, the most gruesome details.

His life, measured in space and time, will take up a mere few lines, which my ignorance will abbreviate further.