The Little Virtues

We believe that we can always return to that secret moment of ours, that we can draw on the right words; but it isn’t true that we can always go back there, often our return there is false; we make our eyes glow with a false light, we pretend to be caring and warm towards our neighbour and we are in fact once more shrunken and hunched up in the icy darkness of our heart. Human relationships have to be rediscovered and reinvented every day.

we have lost every ability to think of ourselves or enjoy ourselves.

the strangest desires come to us, desires we would never have dreamed we could have when we walked through the city alone and free; we would like an umbrella-stand and a coatrack, towels, a camping oven, a refrigerator.

How strong and free our past was, when we walked alone at will through the city! We felt such pity for the families we saw

We did not know that there could be such fear, such frailty, in our body: we never suspected that we could feel so bound to life by a chain of fear, of such heart-rending tenderness

tell the person who lives with us all our thoughts, while we are eating soup at our well-lit table; it doesn’t seem worth the effort to tell other people anything.

we don’t have an umbrella – we would rather commit suicide than go out with an umbrella; we don’t have an umbrella or a hat or gloves or the tram fare: a

suspicions: ‘but do you exist?’ we ask her, and she swears that she exists, and we are infinitely happy.

Every day homesickness grew in us. Sometimes it was even pleasant, like being in gentle slightly intoxicating company.

the true defence against wealth is an indifference to money.