Today I know this: when it comes time to take stock, the most painful wound is that of broken friendships; and there is nothing more foolish than to sacrifice a friendship to politics.

Tereza knew what happens during the moment love is born: the woman cannot resist the voice calling forth her terrified soul; the man cannot resist the woman whose soul thus responds to his voice.

Sensuality is the total mobilization of the senses: an individual observes his partner intently, straining to catch every sound.

Yes, the essence of every love is a child, and it makes no difference at all whether it has ever actually been conceived or born. In the algebra of love a child is the symbol of the magical sum of two beings.

Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of greatest distress.

The man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present... he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future... he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear.

Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.