Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry. That's why I tell you yet again, and you want to keep in mind: Boccaccio doesn't understand love. Love can never be laughable. Love has nothing in common with laughter.

Fortunately, I read (the books) without knowing what I was in for, and the best thing that can ever happen to a reader happened to me: I loved something that, by conviction (or by my nature) I should not have loved

She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.

Fortunately women have the miraculous ability to change the meaning of their actions after the event.

Love is a battle, and I plan to go on fighting. To the end.

Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity.

The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course, Genesis was written by a man, not a horse.