She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste.

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After the age of 50 we begin to die little by little in the deaths of others.

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The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.

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All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

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Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.

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Only by living absurdly is it possible to break out of this infinite absurdity.

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Only in dreams, in poetry, in play do we sometimes arrive at what we were before we were this thing that, who knows, we are.

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Time is born in the eyes, everybody knows that.

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What most people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I’ve seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. They probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her, I think it’s just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn’t picked out, Juliet wasn’t picked out. You don’t pick out the rain that soaks you to a skin when you come out of a concert.

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We no longer believe because it is absurd: it is absurd because we must believe.

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