Nothing requires a greater effort of thought than arguments to justify the rule of non-thought.

Every love relationship rests on an unwritten agreement unthinkingly concluded by the lovers in the first weeks of their love. They are still in a kind of dream but at the same time, without knowing it, are drawing up, like uncompromising lawyers, the detailed clauses of their contract. O lovers! Be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you've brought breakfast in bed you'll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal.

To laugh is to live profoundly.

Forgive me," he went on. "For a long time I have had the peculiar habit of not arriving but appearing.

Cemeteries in Bohemia are like gardens. The graves are covered with grass and colourful flowers. Modest tombstones are lost in the greenery. When the sun goes down, the cemetery sparkles with tiny candles... no matter how brutal life becomes, peace always reigns in the cemetery. Even in wartime, even in Hitler's time, even in Stalin's time.

People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone.

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