Loves are like empires: when the idea they are founded on crumbles, they too, fade away. - Milan Kundera

Another image comes to mind: Nietzsche leaving his hotel in Turin. Seeing a horse and a coachman beating it with a whip, Nietzsche went up to the horse and, before the coachman’s very eyes, put his arms around the horse’s neck and burst into tears.

That took place in 1889, when Nietzsche, too, had removed himself from the world of people. In other words, it was at the time when his mental illness had just erupted. But for that very reason I feel his gesture has broad implications: Nietzsche was trying to apologize to the horse of Descartes. His lunacy (that is, his final break with mankind) began at the very moment he burst into tears over the horse.

In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood.
For she had but a single weapon against the world of crudity surrounding her:
the books she took out of the municipal library, and above all, the novels.

هل بالإمكان إدانة ماهو زائل؟ إن غيوم المغيب البرتقالية تضفي على كل شيء ألق الحنين، حتى على المقصلة.