She saw her soul shinning through the features on her face.
Her image of it came entirely from what she had heard. Or read. Or received unconsciously from distant ancestors. And yet it lived within her.
Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler’s concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period in my life, a period that would never return?
Without asking her permission, someone is trying to intrude her life, draw her attention, in short, to bother her.
Her nascent love inflamed her sense of beauty”.
He was not at all sure he was doing the right thing, but he was sure he was doing what he wanted to do.
Not only have people stopped trying to be attractive when they are out among other people, but they are no longer even trying not to look ugly!
He knew perfectly well that his petition would not help the prisoners. His true goal was not to free to prisoners; it was to show that people without fear still exist.
Franz could not accept that the fact that the glory of the Grand March was equal to the comic vanity of its marchers.
He had come to find out once and for all that neither parades nor Sabina but rather the girl with the glasses was his real life, his only real life! He had come to find out that reality was more than a dream, much more than a dream!
Los cuerpos desnudos y mojados de las mujeres se empujaban impacientes para ver de cerca la muerte, para verla en una cara familiar, conocida.
A man who loses his privacy loses everything, Sabina thought.
The only explanation I can suggest is that for Franz, love was not an extension of public life but its antithesis. It meant a longing to put himself in the mercy of his partner. He who gives himself up his weapons as well. And deprived in advance of defense against a possible blow, he cannot help wondering when the blow will fall. That is why I can say that for Franz, love meant the constant expectation of a blow.
Love is by definition an unmerited gift; being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love.
Jetzt hatte sie begriffen! Wer sich erinnern will, darf nicht an einem Ort verweilen und warten, bis die Erinnerungen von selbst kommen! Die Erinnerungen haben sich in alle Himmelsrichtungen verstreut, und man muss reisen, wenn man sie wiederfinden und aus ihren Schlupfwinkeln holen will!
It’s a great consolation to think that when we’ve long been in the grave our noses will still be strolling the earth.
Only cactuses had perennial appeal. And cactuses were of no interest to her.
The only person who had ever really interrogated her was her husband, and that was because love is a constant interrogation.
Not until later did she understand that the word “woman” on which he had placed such uncommon emphasis, did not, in his eyes, signify one of the two human sexes; it represented a value. Not every woman was worthy of being called a woman.
Men grow old, the end draws near, each moment becomes more and more valuable, and there is no time to waste over recollections.