Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings?

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.

As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from one end of the keyboard to the other without a stop.

She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality of marriage.

The smooth folds of her dress concealed a tumultuous heart, and her modest lips told nothing of her torment. She was in love.

An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.

...those works that don't touch the heart, it seems to me, miss the true aim of Art.

Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.

Financial demands, of all the rough winds that blow upon our love, (are) quite the coldest and the most biting.

And she felt as though she had been there, on that bench, for an eternity. For an infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.

What comes from the soul, you can’t fake or learn. You be it, by letting it.

Obtuseness is sometimes a virtue.

Sweden is the home of my ancestors, and I have reserved a special place in my heart for Sweden.

Both the Freudian and the Platonic metaphors emphasize the considerable independence of and tension among the constituent parts of the psyche, a point that characterizes the human condition.

Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth.

I'm old and my knowledge is strictly horizontal.

There are extensive contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda.

By digging into our souls, we often dig up what might better have remained there unnoticed." Alexis Alexandrovich

In love, happiness is an abnormal state.

We need to expand Social Security to prevent the looming retirement crisis, and we can do it simply by asking billionaires to pay their fair share.