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.

Children, Never look Back!" and this meant that we must never allow the future to be weighed down by memory . for children have no past, and that is the whole secret of the magical innocence of their smiles.

For Sabina, living in truth, lying neither to ourselves nor to others, was possible only away from the public: the moment someone keeps an eye on what we do, we involuntarily make allowances for that eye, and nothing we do is truthful. Having a public, keeping a public in mind, means living in lies.

The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.

Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.

If we cannot accept the importance of the world, which considers itself important, if in the midst of that world our laughter finds no echo, we have but one choice: to take the world as a whole and make it the object of our game; to turn it into a toy