Appeals and threats, when once they have been made, work their way into the consciousness of the person to whom they have been addressed, by a process not unlike that by which a rumour spreads among a crowd. The appeal or the threat is whispered and passed on, but each time it is repeated the whisperer gives it his own stress. In the end one rumour may give birth to several rumours but they will all share the same kind of alarm or hope. Yet who is the crowd? Who goes on circulating and whispering the appeals and threats in the mind until the decision has been taken? The crowd is an assembly of all the other possible selves, commenting on the self in power, whom they believe to be a usurper. They were born from visions in the past; they have failed to establish their own power, but they have not been dispersed, they still inhabit the personality.
It is only now that I understand an incident in G.'s childhood and a prophecy which were mysterious to me when I wrote them...
...he found it impossible to make a distinct separation between her face and the face of the Roman girl in the courtyard in Milan when she splashed water on him and told him to drink. Their features were entirely different. It was in their expression that the mysterious continuity resided. To break this continuity so as to make room for all his adult life between the first and the second face, he had to forget their smeared foreheads, their mouths and intense, silent eyes and remember only the meaning of their expression for him. What mattered the first time was what her expression confirmed and what until that moment had been wordless: what mattered then was not being dead. Now, the second time, what mattered was what her expression confirmed and what until now had been wordless: why not be dead?
The eating of a cherry in no way prepares you for its stone.
...death when it arrives is always a mounting surprise which surprises itself to the point at which all reference—and therefore all self-distinction—disappears.
Идеал - это сказки для тех, кто верит в доброго Господа и загробную жизнь.
Влюбленность - изощренное чувство предвосхищения постоянного обмена определенными дарами, от мимолетного взгляда до предложения себя самого, целиком и полностью.
Вальс - круг, в котором вздымаются и опадают ленты чувств. Музыка распускает банты и снова их завязывает.
Мазурка - одновременно и скачки, и триумфальный марш победителя.
Человеку следует полагать себя отличным от остальных, ведь только это позволит ему понять, чего именно он сможет или не сможет добиться от жизни. Лишь безумец требует всего или ничего. Roma o Morte! Рим или смерть!