I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.

Now time has a very different look; it is no longer the conquering present capturing the future; it is the present conquered and captured and carried off by the past.

To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends.

The worth of a human being lies in the ability to extend oneself, to go outside oneself, to exist in and for other people.

She had come to him to escape her mother's world, a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceble. But he, too had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed them all alike, stroked them all alike, made no, absolutely no distiction between Tereza's body and the other bodies. He sent her back to the world she tried to escape, sent to march naked with the other naked women

To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent.