Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.

A single metaphor can give birth to love.

The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure.

A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.

Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.

Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.

This was exactly what the girl had most dreaded all her life and had scrupulously avoided until now: lovemaking without emotion or love. She knew that she had crossed the forbidden boundary, but she proceeded across it without objections and as a full participant; only somewhere, far off in a corner of her consciousness, did she feel horror at the thought that she had never known such pleasure, never so much pleasure as at this moment--beyond that boundary.