Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor

There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos.

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

I was not a hypocrite, with one real face and several false ones. I had several faces because I was young and didn't know who I was or wanted to be.

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.

I have a strong will to love you for eternity.

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.