I have no mission. No one has.

Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.

The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on.

I understood that there was no escaping the memories, that I was surround by them. (p.30)

Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.

The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.

Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'd stopped loving her, that I'd forgotten her, or that her image had paled; on the contrary; in the form of a quiet nostalgia she remained constantly within me; I longed for her as one longs for something definitively lost.