All Men Are Mortal

That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.

One day I'll be old, dead, forgotten. And at this very moment, while I'm sitting here thinking these things, a man in a dingy hotel room is thinking, "I will always be here."

If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.

Even the children of Carmona were divided into two camps, and below the ramparts, among the brushwood and rocks, we battled with stones shouting "Long live the duke!" and others, "Down with the tyrant!" We fought viciously, but I was never satisfied with this game — the fallen enemy rose again, the dead came back to life. The day after a battle, victors and vanquished both found themselves unharmed.

It is impossible to do anything for anyone.

After wars peace, after peace, another war. Every day men are born and others die.

I'm never afraid. But in my case it's nothing to be proud of.

They were walking side by side, but each was alone.

What has value in their eyes is never what is done for them; it's what they do for themselves.

I was born in Italy on the 17th May 1279 in a castle in the city of Carmona.

Dare to believe me. Dare!

Try to stay a man amongst men … There's no other hope for you.

Were we really more advanced than the alchemists of Carmona? We had brought to light certain facts that they were not aware of, we had organised them into the right order; but had we advanced even a step nearer to the mysterious heart of the universe?

In horror, in terror, she accepted the metamorphosis — gnat, foam, ant, until death. And it's only the beginning, she thought. She stood motionless, as if it were possible to play tricks with time, possible to stop it from following its course. But her hands stiffened against her quivering lips.

When the bells began to sound the hour she let out the first scream.

You made me come to Paris. You pestered me to start living again. Well, now it's up to you to make my life livable. You mustn't let three whole days go by without coming to see me. … You wanted me to take notice of you. Now nothing else matters to me. I know you're alive and I feel emptiness inside me when you're away.

He walks in the street, a picture of modesty in his felt hat and his gabardine suit, and all the while he's thinking, "I'm immortal." The world is his, time is his, and I'm nothing but an insect.

What did today's sacrifices matter: the Universe lay ahead in the future. What did burnings at the stake and massacres matter? The Universe was somewhere else, always somewhere else! And it isn't anywhere: there are only men, men eternally divided.

You're unique like all other women.

There is only one good. And that is to act according to the dictates of one's conscience.

He had not applauded, he had remained seated, but he had looked at her steadily. From the depths of eternity he had looked at her and Rosalind became immortal. If I could believe him, she thought, if only I could believe him!

It was as though some stubborn god spent their time in an immutable and absurd balancing act between life and death, prosperity and poverty.

For the first time in my life, I took part in a real battle between men. The dead did not come to life again, the vanquished fled in disorder; every thrust of my lance helped save Carmona. That day, I would have died with a smile on my lips, certain of having contributed to a triumphant future for my city.

If I had amnesia, I'd be almost like other men. Perhaps I'd even be able to love you.

Insects were scurrying about in the shade cast by the grass, and the lawn was a huge monotonous forest of thousands of little green blades, all equal, all alike, hiding the world from each other. Anguished, she thought, "I don't want to be just another blade of grass."

Time is beginning to flow again.

She was beautiful, with a beauty so severe and so solitary that at first it was startling. "Ah! If only there were two of me," she thought, "one doing the talking and one listening, one living and one watching, how I would love myself. I'd envy no one."