She was aware that in love even the most passionate idealism will not rid the body's surface of its terrible, basic importance.

Nudity is the uniform of the other side... nudity is a shroud.

and she realized that she (her soul) was not at all involved, only her body, her body alone. The body that had betrayed her and that she had sent out into the world among other bodies.

we might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. he is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?

No love can survive muteness.