"Pick me up," is the message of a person who keeps falling. Tomas kept picking her up, patiently.

Aesthetic racism is almost always a sign of inexperience. Those who have not made their way far enough into the world of amorous delights judge women only by what can be seen. But those who really know women understand that the eye reveals only a minute fraction of what a woman can offer us. When God bade mankind be fruitful and multiply, Doctor, He was thinking of the ugly as well as of the beautiful. I am convinced I might add, that the aesthetic criterion does not come from God but from the devil. In paradise no distinction was made between ugliness and beauty.

Optimism is the opium of the people.

The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become

You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

Yes, it was too late, and Sabina knew she would leave Paris, move on, and on again, because were she to die here they would cover her up with a stone, and in the mind of a woman for whom no place is home the thought of an end to all flight is unbearable.

Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.