What did i know of your fantasies? Why do we know so little about the fantasies of our parents? What do we know of somebody if we know nothing of the images passed to him by his imagination?

We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.

Life is not what we live; it is what we imagine we are living.

It wasn't only that you didn't see him anymore, meet him anymore. You saw his absence and encountered it as something tangible. His not being there was like the sharply outlined emptiness of a photo with a figure cut out precisely with scissors and now the missing figure is more important, more dominant than all others.

Don't waste your time, do something worthwhile with it." But what can that mean: worthwhile? Finally to start realizing long-cherished wishes. To attack the error that there will always be time for it later....Take the long-dreamed-of trip, learn this language, read those books, buy yourself this jewelry, spend a night in that famous hotel. Don't miss out on yourself. Bigger things are also part of that: to give up the loathed profession, break out of a hated milieu. Do what contributes to making you more genuine, moves you closer to yourself.

'De nada,' replied Gregorius. The Portuguese couple sat down, the train went on. Gregorius was never to forget this scene. They were his first Portuguese words in the real world and they worked. That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it extraordinary and it had never stopped impressing him.

Isn't it true that it's not people who meet, but rather the shadows cast by their imaginations?