الموت قريب إلى درجة نمل معها من النظر إليه. ويصير كما في السابق بعيدا عن النظر وغير مرئي. بعيد عن النظر مثل الأشياء الأليفة جدا والمعروفة جدا. - Milan Kundera

We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.

A great deal has been said about love at first sight; I am perfectly aware of love's retrospective tendency to make a legend of itself, turn its beginnings into myth; so I don't want to assert that it was love; but I have no doubt there was a kind of clairvoyance at work: I immediately felt, sensed, grasped the essence of Lucie's being or, to be more precise, the essence of what she was later to become for me; Lucie had revealed herself to me the way religious truth reveals itself.

But was it love? The feeling of wanting to die beside her was clearly exaggerated: he had seen her only once before in his life! Was it simply the hysteria of a man, who, aware deep down of his inaptitude for love, felt the self-deluding need to simulate it?