We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

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

Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.

And I ran after that voice through the streets so as not to lose sight of the splendid wreath of bodies gliding over the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any.

She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn't possibly hurt her.

Aesthetic racism is almost always a sign of inexperience. Those who have not made their way far enough into the world of amorous delights judge women only by what can be seen. But those who really know women understand that the eye reveals only a minute fraction of what a woman can offer us. When God bade mankind be fruitful and multiply, Doctor, He was thinking of the ugly as well as of the beautiful. I am convinced I might add, that the aesthetic criterion does not come from God but from the devil. In paradise no distinction was made between ugliness and beauty.

Optimism is the opium of the people.