But isn't it true that an author can write only about himself?

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

In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood

God has been kind to dogs in no putting a sense of beauty into their heads.

...people don't respect the morning. An alarm clock violently wakes them up, shatters their sleep like the blow of an ax, and they immediately surrender themselves to deadly haste.

Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short.

loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they, too, fade away.