Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and… - Milan Kundera

All this time he was sitting up in bed and looking at the woman who was lying beside him and holding his hand in her sleep. He felt an ineffable love for her. Her sleep must have been very light at the moment because she opened her eyes and gazed up at him questioningly.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

He knew that instead of waking her he should lull her back to sleep, so he tried to come up with an answer that would plant the image of a new dream in her mind.

“I’m looking at the stars,” he said.

“Don’t say you’re looking at the stars. That’s a lie. You’re looking down.”

“That’s because we’re on an airplane. The stars are below us.”

“Oh, in an airplane,” said Tereza, squeezing his hand even tighter and falling asleep again. And Tomas knew that Tereza was looking out of the round window of an airplane flying high above the stars.

To rebel against being born a woman seemed as foolish to her as to take pride in it.

When a person is clubbed violently on the head, he collapses and stops breathing. Some day, he will stop breathing anyway.