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.

In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood

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

If our planet has seen some eighty billion people it is difficult to suppose hat every individual has had his or her own repertory of gestures. Arithmetically, it is simply impossible. Without the slightest doubt, there are far fewer gestures in the world than there are individuals. That finding leads us to a shocking conclusion: a gesture is more individual than an individual. We could put it in the form of an aphorism: many people, few gestures.

She had an overwhelming desire to tell him, like the most banal of women. Don't let me go, hold me tight, make me your plaything, your slave, be strong! But they were words she could not say. The only thing she said when he released her from his embrace was, "You don't know how happy I am to be with you." That was the most her reserved nature allowed her to express.

She knew that there were all kinds of ways to make a conquest and that one of the surest roads to a woman's genitals was through her sadness.

To laugh is to live profoundly.