In a man’s attachment to life there is something stronger than all the ills in the world.
Anyway, remembering Marie meant nothing to me. I wasn’t interested in her dead. That seemed perfectly normal to me, since I understood very well that people would forget me when I was dead.
He wanted to diminish the surface he offered the world, to sleep until everything was consumed.
Men like you and me who in the morning patted children on the head would a few hours later become meticulous executioners.
I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. There are means which cannot be excused.
The old woman went to Mass every morning. “Don’t you believe in God? she asked him. On Rambert’s admitting he did not, she said again that “that explained it.” “Yes,” she added, “you’re right. You must go back to her. Or else – what would be left of you?
I answered that, of recent years, I’d rather lost the habit of noting my feelings, and hardly knew what to answer. I could truthfully say I’d been quite fond of Mother – but really that didn’t mean much. All normal people, I added as on afterthought, had more or less desired the death of those they loved, at some time or another.
Oh, it must be an epidemic,′ the priest said; and his eyes were smiling behind his glasses.
Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time.
There is a certain freedom of enjoyment that defines true civilization. And the Spanish are among the few peoples in Europe who are civilized.
To be happy, you need time. Lots of time. Happiness too is a long patience. And it is the need for money that robs us of time. To be rich means having time to be happy when you deserve happiness.
Poverty kept me from thinking all was well under the sun and in history; the sun taught me that history was not everything.
To feel one’s ties to a land, one’s love for certain men, to know there is always a place where the heart can find rest – these are already many certainties for one man’s life.
Matarse es, en cierto sentido y como en el melodrama, confesar. Es confesar que la vida nos supera o que no la entendemos.
Por eso resulta tan desgarrador el amor de los hombres. No pueden evitar separarse de lo que aman.
I meet with my soulmate but she didn’t.
That’s why it’s good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion – it gives you an alibi from the great despairs we all suffer from.
Just as there is a moment when the artist must stop, when the sculpture must be left as it is, the painting untouched – just as a determination not to know serves the maker more than all the resources of clairvoyance – so there must be a minimum of ignorance in order to perfect a life in happiness. Those who lack such a thing must set about acquiring it: unintelligence must be earned.
Sometimes he picked up his watch and stared as the minute hand shifted from one number to the next, marveling that five minutes should seem so interminable. Doubtless that watch opened the way – a painful and tormenting way – which leads to the supreme art of doing nothing.
I was managing simultaneously to love women and justice, which is no easy matter.