Deep within everyone’s heart there always remains a sense of longing for that hour, that summer, that one brief moment of blossoming. For several weeks or months, rarely longer, a beautiful young woman lives outside ordinary life. She is intoxicated. She feels as if she exists beyond time, beyond its laws; she experiences not the monotonous succession of days passing by, but moments of intense, almost desperate happiness.

Love is just a peculiar, fleeting affair that isn’t very important, but in marriage there is always hostility between two different tribes of human beings. There are two opposing forces, who fight each other until one of them wins, and you and I, my poor old Alain, have been knocked out too easily.

This thing of Beauty is a Guilt forever.

He hated the war; it threatened much more than his lifestyle or peace of mind. It continually destroyed the world of the imagination, the only world where he felt happy.

How sad the world is, so beautiful yet so absurd...

Con lei" pensò Yves, con insolita irritazione "bisognerebbe essere sempre psicologicamente in smoking. E io, ahimè, non posso permettermelo

Quanto bisogna aver vissuto, per poter scoprire tratti umani nei nostri genitori o insegnanti! E, probabilmente, pensava, l'intera esistenza consiste in questo lento cambiamento di prospettiva.

<>, le rispose cercando di calmarla. <>.

[I figli] Ci divorano vivi e noi li benediciamo.

Aparțineau acelei clase din marea burghezie franceză care prefera să-și vadă copiii fără pâine, fără carne și aer decât fără diplome...