There is no perfection, only life.
The only relationship that can make both partners happy is one in which sentimentality has no place and neither partner makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other.
At the end of true love is death, and only the love that ends in death is love.
The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.
The senator had only one argument in his favour: his feeling. When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.
To ensure that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends.
A man is responsible for his ignorance.
Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love.
Mankind’s real moral test, a test so radical and so deep that it escapes our gaze, is probably the one of its relations with those that are the most at its mercy; the Animals.
Only animals were not expelled from Paradise.
As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom.
In the realm of totalitarian kitsch, all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions.
Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it.
Living is being happy: seeing, hearing, touching, drinking, eating, urinating, defecating, diving into the water and gazing at the sky, laughing and crying.
The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self-confidence.
Flirting is a promise of sexual intercourse without a guarantee.
We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions – love, antipathy, charity, or malice – and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.
Sometimes you make up your mind about something without knowing why, and your decision persists by the power of inertia. Every year it gets harder to change.
She regarded books as the emblems of secret brotherhood. A man with this sort of library couldn’t possibly hurt her.
Those boobs of yours are ubiquitous – like God!