Remembering now all those farewells (fake farewells, worked-up farewells), Irena thinks: a person who messes up her goodbyes shouldn’t expect much from her re-unions.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

The psychological and physiological mechanism of love is so complex that at a certain period in his life a young man must concentrate all his energy on coming to grips with it, and in this way he misses the actual content of the love: the woman he loves. (In this he is much like a young violinist who cannot concentrate on the emotional content of a piece until the technique required to play it comes automatically.)

Aren't we living in a world where heedless men only desire decapitated women?

The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.

a man possessed with peace is always smiling

Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo.