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.

Without the meditative background that is criticism, works become isolated gestures, historical accidents, soon forgotten.

The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.

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

And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.

Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.