Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.

Love is a continual interrogation. I don’t know of a better definition of love.

Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.

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

As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom.

He was no longer quite sure whether anything he had ever thought or felt was truly his own property, or whether his thoughts were merely a common part of the world’s store of ideas which had always existed ready-made and which people only borrowed, like books from a library.

The longing for Paradise is man's longing not to be man.