“She did not have time to wonder about his being late. He died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood out in front of the hardware store… He had not even had time to get into the store…”

“Ние живеем в една самоизмама, че сме нужни. Но ако аз умра, животът ще продължи. Животът е милиарди смърти. Аз съм само име, което идва и си отива.(…)Ние живеем в тоя мрак на еднодневки. От пукването на утрото до вечерта. Светът е пълен с имена. И с ужас пред тая краткотрайност.”

“What you don’t think about when you’re planning for children is when you’re going to teach them how not to be killed”

“How I suffered when I had to preach to you those pious lies that I detest in my heart. What remorse your credulity caused me! A thousand times I was on the point of breaking out publicly and opening your eyes, but a fear stronger than myself held me back, and forced me to keep silence until my death.”

“I had never known any man to die while speaking in terza-rima”

“Death stalked toward us on padded feet.       And it was not alone.”

“En su habitación del hotel la muerte, desnuda, está delante del espejo. No sabe quién es.”

“I looked over at Augustus Waters, who looked back at me. You could almost see through his eyes they were so blue. “There will come a time,” I said, “when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed for that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. ”

“Neighbours complaining about someone’s dog making an awful racket. You could hardly blame the poor beast, its owner had died in her bed at least a fortnight before and there hadn’t been much left of the old girl worth eating.”

“But when, as is most often the case, the husband and wife accept the external obligation to live together all their lives and have, by the second month, come to loathe the sight of each other, want to get divorced and yet go on living together, it usually ends in that terrible hell that drives them to drink, makes them shoot themselves, kill and poison each other”

“Death had been more pitiful to them than longer life would have been. It had taken the one in the loyalty of love, and the other in the innocence of faith, from a world which for love has no recompense and for faith no fulfillment.”

“No man kills himself unless there is something wrong with his life.”

“BUT MOST PEOPLE ARE RATHER STUPID AND WASTE THEIR LIVES. HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THAT? HAVE YOU NOT LOOKED DOWN FROM THE HORSE AT A CITY AND THOUGHT HOW MUCH IT RESEMBLED AN ANT HEAP, FULL OF BLIND CREATURES WHO THINK THEIR MUNDANE LITTLE WORLD WAS REAL? YOU SEE THE LIGHTED WINDOWS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO THINK IS THAT THERE MAY BE MANY INTERESTING STORIES BEHIND THEM, BUT WHAT YOU KNOW IS THAT REALLY THERE ARE JUST DULL, DULL SOULS, MERE CONSUMERS OF FOOD, WHO THINK THEIR INSTINCTS ARE EMOTIONS AND THEIR TINY LITTLE LIVES OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN A WHISPER OF WIND.The blue glow was bottmless. It seemed to be sucking her own thoughts out of her mind.’No,’ whispered Susan, ‘no, I’ve never thought like that.’Death stood up abruptly and turned away. YOU MAY FIND OUT THAT IT HELPS, he said.”

“Addio, Dann. Addio, piccolo signor Rail, che mi hai insegnato la vita. Avevi ragione tu: non siamo morti. Non è possibile morire vicino a te. Perfino Mormy ha aspettato che tu fossi lontano per farlo. Adesso sono io che vado lontano. E non sarà vicino a te che morirò. Addio, mio piccolo signore, che sognavi i treni e sapevi dov’era l’infinito. Tutto quel che c’era io l’ho visto, guardando te. E sono stata ovunque, stando con te. È una cosa che non riuscirò a spiegare mai a nessuno. Ma è così. Me la porterò dietro, e sarà il mio segreto più bello. Addio, Dann. Non pensarmi mai, se non ridendo. Addio.”

“This world’s a city full of straying streets, and death’s the market-place where each one meets.”