All lovers unconsciously establish their own rules of the game, which from the outset admit of no transgression.

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.

Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.

given the nature of the human couple, the love of a man and a woman is a priori inferior to that which can exist (at least in the best instances) in the love between man and dog...It is a completely selfless love.

The important thing is to abide by the rule of threes. Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart.

A constant interrogation.

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