I'd never recited poetry to anyone before; I've never done it since. I have a highly sensitive, built-in fuse mechanism that keeps me from opening up too far, from revealing my feelings, and reciting...
My dearcolleagues, as you know, the greatest misfortune for a man is a happy marriage; he hasn't theslightest hope of a divorce.
Every novel says to the reader: Things are not as simple as you think. That is the novel’s eternal truth, but it grows steadily harder to hear amid the din of easy, quick answers that come faster than...
Revolution in Love’. Can you tell me what you mean by that? Do you want free love as against bourgeois marriage, or monogamy as against bourgeois promiscuity?
For existential mathematics, which does not exist, would probably propose this equation: the value of coincidence equals the degree of its improbability.
Tereza's mother never stopped reminding her that being a mother meant sacrificing everything. Her words had the ring of truth, backed as they were by the experience of a woman who had lost everything...
As I have pointed out before, characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thi...
Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love.
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 ex...
Because misogynists are the best of men. All the poets reacted to these words with hooting. Boccaccio was forced to raise his voice: Please understand me. Misogynists don’t despise women. Misogynists...
The method of addition is quite charming if it involves adding to the self such things as a cat, a dog, roast pork, love of the sea or of cold showers. But the matter becomes less idyllic if a person...
Too much faith is the worst ally. When you believe in something literally, through your faith you'll turn it into something absurd. One who is a genuine adherent, if you like, of some political outloo...
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight.
For what is love if one loves a woman without knowing her? Just a decision to love? Or even an imitation? The question concerns us all: If, from our childhood on, the examples of love were not there i...
Ქვეყნისათვის სიცოცხლის გაწირვა: ყველა ერმა იცის ამ შესაწირავის ფასი. ჩეხების მტრებმაც, გერმანიამაც და რუსეთმაც, იციან, რა არის ეს, მაგრამ ისინი ხომ დიდი ერები არიან, ამიტომ მათი პატრიოტიზმიც გასხვავებ...
Whe you sit face to face with someone who is pleasant, respectful and polite, you have a hard time reminding yourself that nothing he says is true, that nothing is sincere. Maintaining nonbelief requi...
The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.
Scepticism does not abolish the world, it turns it into questions.
Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.
Those who are fascinated by the idea of progress do not suspect that everything moving forward is at the same time bringing the end nearer and that joyous watchwords like forward and farther are the l...