Don’t forget that not only was Socrates ugly but also that many famous women lovers did not distinguish themselves at all by their physical perfection. Aesthetic racism is almost always a sign of inexperience. Those who have not made their way far enough into the world of amorous delights judge women only by what can be seen. But those who really know women understand that the eye reveals only a minute fraction of what a woman can offer us.
Now we can understand the meaning of Tereza’s secret vice, her long looks and frequent glances in the mirror. It was a battle with her mother. It was a longing to be a body unlike other bodies, to find that the surface of her face reflected the crew of the soul charging up from below. It was not an easy task: her soul – her sad, timid, self-effacing soul – lay concealed in the depths of her bowels and was ashamed to show itself.
Change the world! In Pontevin’s view, what a monstrous goal! Not because the world is so admirable as it is but because any change leads inevitably to something worse.
They love their bodies. We neglected ours. They love to travel. We stayed put. They love adventure. We spent all our time at meetings. They love jazz. We were satisfied with pale imitations of folk music. They’re interested in themselves. We wanted to save the world and with our messianic vision nearly destroyed it. Maybe they with their egotism will be the ones to save it.
Silence lay between them like an agony.
Anyhow, he asks himself, what is an intimate secret? Is that where we hide what’s most mysterious, most singular, most original about a human being? Are her intimate secrets what make Chantal the unique being he loves? No. What people keep secret is the most common, the most ordinary, the most prevalent thing, the same thing everybody has: the body and its needs, it maladies, its manias.
I don’t know whether my nation will perish and I don’t know which of my characters is right. I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means i ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.
She looked at him with love in her eyes, but she feared the night ahead, feared her dreams. Her life was split. Both day and night were competing for her.
I have become so pessimistic that these days I’d even choose the truth over friendship.
Never had she let herself go in this way with another body, and never had another body let itself go with her in this way. Her lover could play with her belly, but he had never lived in there; he could touch her breast, but he never drunk from it.
You were like flames that must dance and leap to exist at all.
There is nothing harder to explain than humor.
The greatest adventure of our lives is the absence of adventure.
The cemetery was vanity transmogrified into stone. Instead of growing more sensible in death, the inhabitants of the cemetery were sillier than they had been in life.
Each interpreted the other’s words in his own way, and the lived in perfect harmony, the perfect solidarity of perfect Mutual misunderstanding.
He yearned for one long embrace with Sabina, yearned never to say another sentence, another word, to let his orgasm fuse with that orgiastic thunder of music. And lulled by that blissful imaginary uproar, he fell asleep.
It was idealism that made him so angry. He expected too much out of life.
Solo como un cuadro de Van Gogh bajo la mirada idiota de los turistas. Solo como la Luna que nadie ve.
La tristeza era la forma y la felicidad, el contenido. La felicidad llenaba el espacio de la tristeza.
But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly exaggerated: he had seen her only once before in his life! Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it? His unconscious was so cowardly that the best partner it could choose for its little comedy was this miserable provincial waitress with practically no chance at all to enter his life!