The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Allende drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the war in the Sinai Desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai, and so on and so forth until ultimately everyone lets everything be forgotten.

Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.

Yes, it's a well-known fact about you: you're like death, you take everything.

Necessity, weight, and value are three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value.

But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master?

People fascinated by the idea of progress never suspect that every step forward is also a step on the way to the end.

Tereza had gone back to sleep; he could not. He pictured her death. She was dead and having terrible nightmares; but because she was dead, he was unable to wake her from them. Yes, that is death: Tereza asleep, having terrible nightmares, and he unable to wake her.