"I was inexpressibly struck, overtaken by chills, the likes of which I have not felt since the time I studied Sylvia Plath. Vanna Bonta is an important discovery."

"Ready to test that law [physics] and go where no man and woman have gone before is Vanna Bonta."

"She totally enchanted us. Her presence was kind and is still greatly missed."

"She plays like a child and creates like a genius."

"I think the concept of the 2suit is perfect. But I also think just the philosophy of thinking, thinking beyond normal into creating a suit for two people is wonderful."

"We care so little of other people than even Christianity urges us to do good for the love of God."

"I started explaining to her that nothing is vulgar in itself but that talking and thinking make it so."

"All of them, all those idiots who force their brains and don't know when to stop."

"You've got to understand life, understand it when you're young."

"I've discovered nothing. but do you remember how much we talked when we were boys? We talked just for the fun of it. We knew very well it was only talk, but still we enjoyed it."

"What doesn't slumber under the shells of us all? One just needs courage to uncover it and be oneself. Or at least to discuss it. There isn't enough discussion in the world."

"If all this were true, how easy it would be to understand people."

"See, you're like all the others. But don't you understand that we can't quarrel? We love each other. If I could hate him the way I hate myself, then of course I would abuse him. But neither of us deserves it. See?"

"Don't mix wine and women, Doro."

"At a certain point the two cigars fell at our feet in the snow and then we heard them whispering up there and moving about and then came a sigh louder than the others. When we looked up we could see nothing but the withered vine leaves and thousands of stars in the frosty sky. Nuto said "The blackguards" through his clenched teeth."

"Maybe it's better like this, better that everything should go up in a blaze of dry grass and that people should begin again."

"People who don't know any better will always be in the dark because the power lies in the hands of men who take good care that ordinary folk don't understand, in the hands, that is, of the government, of the clerical party, of the capitalists."

"I realised that Nuto was quite right when he said that to live in a hovel or in a palace was one and the same thing, that blood is the same colour everywhere, and that everybody wants to be rich and in love and make their fortune."

"Life without smoking is like the smoke without the roast."

"What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it."

"What is to come will emerge only after long suffering, long silence."

"Consider this point carefully: nowadays, suicide is just a way of disappearing. It is carried out timidly, quietly, and falls flat. It is no longer an action, only a submission."

"When a man mourns for someone who has played him false, it is not for love of her, but for his own humiliation at not having deserved her trust."

"Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared."

"If it is true that one gets used to suffering, how is it that as the years go one always suffers more? No, they are not mad, those people who amuse themselves, enjoy life, travel, make love, fight—they are not mad. We should like to do the same ourselves."

"The only joy in the world is to begin. It is good to be alive because living is beginning, always, every moment. When this sensation is lacking—as when one is in prison, or ill, or stupid, or when living has become a habit—one might as well be dead."

"But the real, tremendous truth is this: suffering serves no purpose whatever."

"Every woman longs for a man friend to confide in, to fill the empty hours when the one she loves is away; she insists that this friend does not affect her love for the absent one; she takes offense if he makes any demand that might interfere with her love; but if that friend grows cautious and keeps his words and glances under control, with the sole object of saving himself further suffering, then the woman — any woman — immediately does her best to increase her hold upon him so that she can watch him suffer. And she does not even realize she is doing it. Remember, writing poetry is like making love: one will never know whether one's own pleasure is shared. It is amazing that the woman you love may tell you her days are empty and unbearable, but yet she has no wish to know what yours are like.* // 17th November 1937."

"A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself."

"It had to happen to you, to concentrate your whole life on one point, and then discover that you can do anything except live at that point."