"He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves."
"Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself."
"One had to live a long time to know a man's true nature."
"wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good."
"One could be happy not only without love, but despite it."
"and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without making love again."