What she said was always strange. It had happened long ago. It seemed insignificant. And yet it was something you remembered forever. The words as well as the story. The voice as much as the words.

Banality is sometimes striking.

You are what you are and that fascinates me.

Words don't change their shape, they change their meaning, their function...They don't have a meaning of their own any more, they refer to other words that you don't know, that you've never read or heard...you've never seen their shape, but you feel...you suspect...they correspond to...an empty space inside you...or in the universe.

Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn't comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny.

You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.

Their voices reach out into the empty yard, plunge deep into the hills, go right through the heart.