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

The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful ... Love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said. Because love means renouncing strength," said Franz softly.

Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

Even in the game there lurks a lack of freedom; even in a game is a trap for the players.

If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever.

Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.