“By then I knew that everything good and bad left an emptiness when it stopped. But if it was bad, the emptiness filled up by itself. If it was good you could only fill it by finding something better.”

“God knows I didn't mean to fall in love with her”

“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”

“Now is no time
to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do
with that there is ”

“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”

“Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”

“When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.”

“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

“I am always in love.”

“How did you go bankrupt?"
Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”