He succeeded in being considered totally uninteresting. People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.

He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and malice.

She was indeed a girl of exquisite beauty. She was one of those languid women made of dark honey smooth and sweet and terribly sticky.

Bathed in sweat and trembling with agitation, no, not with agitation, but with fear, for he finally admitted it to himself: it was naked fear that had seized him, and in admitting it he grew calmer and his thoughts clearer.

Very well, but remember this... I'll be looking at you when you're laid on the cross and the twelve blows are crashing down on your limbs. When the crowd is finally tired of your screams and wandered home, I will climb up through your blood and sit beside you. I will look deep into your eyes... and drop by drop I will trickle my disgust into them like burning acid until... finally... you perish.

How quickly the apparently solidly laid foundation of one's existence could crumble.

...talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.