The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not say.

Even at the age of eight she would fall asleep by pressing one hand into the other and making believe she was holding the hand of the man whom she loved, the man of her life. So if in her sleep she pressed Tomas hand with such tenacity, we can understand why: she had been training since childhood.

Attaching love to sex is one of the most bizarre ideas the Creator ever had.

The eye... the point where a person's identity is concentrated.

The history of music is mortal, but the idiocy of the guitar is eternal.

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.

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.