From childhood, she had regarded books as the emblems of a secret brotherhood. - Milan Kundera

Living for Sabina meant seeing. Seeing is limited by two borders: strong light, which blinds, and total darkness. Perhaps that was what motivated Sabina's distaste for all extremism. Extremes mean borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.

In Tereza's eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood

It was the call of all those fortuities... which gave her the courage to leave home and change her fate.