The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.

The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not say.

And there lies the horror: the past we remember is devoid of time. Impossible to reexperience a love the way we reread a book or resee a film.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

By giving the love act a name, if only an innocent little word like, "it," he paved the way for other words, words that would reflect physical love as in a set of mirrors.

Solitude: a sweet absence of looks.

But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)