The novel is a meditation on existence as seen through the medium of imaginary characters.

But what had happened, had happened, and it was no longer possible to right anything.

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

loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.

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.

I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.

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.