Everyone must imagine his own snakes because no one else's snakes can ever be as awful.

But that's how it is when you start wanting to have things. Now, I just look at them, and when I go away I carry them in my head. Then my hands are always free, because I don't have to carry a suitcase.

They were always doing something. Quietly, without interruption, and with great concentration, they carried on with the hundred-and-one small things that made up their world.

Smell is important. It reminds a person of all the things he's been through; it is a sheath of memories and security.

You can't always be friendly. It's impossible, there isn't the time.

‎''Just think, never to be glad or disappointed. Never to like anyone and get cross at him and forgive him. Never to sleep or feel cold, never to make a mistake and have a stomach-ache and be cured from it, never to have a birthday party, drink beer, and have a bad conscience... How terrible.

But he thought all the strange words were beautiful, and he had never had a book of his own before.