The happy times of pristine thinking and open minds, always favorable for beginnings, belonged now to the past, and we knew it.

I did not like the thing in me which he had been able to seduce.

I often wonder if the bill is yet to be presented during our lifetime. If not, I must present it to myself.

I’ve known one thing for a long time: there’s a role in the big machine even for someone who makes fun of it.

I did not yet know that not to feel is never a step forward, scarcely a relief.

Suddenly hope was a thing of the past. I was just one of the other people. I tried imitating the expression on their faces; we still had five days. Then one day; then no time at all. Then I became one of them and in a few hours I’d forgotten that one can look from solid houses with horror and pity at people trekking by.

Coldness in everything. It comes from a long way off; it gets into everything. One must get out of the way before it reaches the core. If it does that, one won’t feel even the coldness any more. Do you see what I mean?

Manfred sapeva assai bene che esiste una sorta di bravura che lascia del tutto fredda la persona in gamba.

In the middle of a war you think of nothing but how it will end. And put off living. When large numbers of people do that, it creates a vacuum within us which the war flows in to fill.

Di cosa non son capaci di persuaderci, queste donne, quando si mettono d’accordo per lasciarci brancolare nel buio.