The only relationship that can make both partners happy is one in which sentimentality has no place and neither partner makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other.

...[P]eople who shout joy from the rooftops are often the saddest of all... (p.24)

On the surface, an intelligible lie; underneath, the unintelligible truth.

Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most naive of questions are truly serious.

Her kitsch was the image of home, all peace, quiet, and harmony, and ruled by a loving mother and a wise father. It was an image that took shape in her after the death of her parents. The less her life resembled the sweetest of dreams, the more sensitive she was to its magic, and more than once she shed tears when the ungrateful daughter in a sentimental film embraced the neglected father as the windows of the happy family's house shone out into the dying day.

Believe me, nothing is more beautiful than to carry out crazy ideas. I'd like my whole life to be one single crazy idea.

Which doesn't mean, of course, that I'd stopped loving her, that I'd forgotten her, or that her image had paled; on the contrary; in the form of a quiet nostalgia she remained constantly within me; I longed for her as one longs for something definitively lost.