An empty bus hurtles through the starry nightPerhaps the driver is singingand happy because he sings.

Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.

When Jan was called up to service a fourth time...my mother waited outside...the two of them were convinced that this time Jan would have to go, that they would surely send him off to cure his ailing chest in the air of France, famed for its iron and lead content.

Three times Jan had been called to the colours (the army), but each time had been deferred because of his deplorable physical condition..when every male who could stand halfway erect was being shipped to Verdun to undergo a radical change in posture from the vertical to the eternal horizontal

Gregor was a real drinker..he didn't drink because he was sad..(or) cheerful. He drank because he was a thorough man, who like to get to the bottom of things, of bottles as well as everything else.

For marriage has nothing in common with love. marriage makes for security; love makes only for suffering. On the other hand, love could be so distilled, spun so fine as to implicate third and fourth persons, as to take up three or four exciting acts in a play.

Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant that it is, it will have its way.

They swore by concrete. They built for eternity.

When the young womanleans over the sky,about to water the flowers as well as the weeds,her white front splits openuntil her milk runs.

...my pride in Joachim Mahlke was as sweet as chocolate creams.

Ignore the misery. Custom invites you to ignore the misery."SHOW YOUR TONGUE

After the collapse of socialism, capitalism remained without a rival. This unusual situation unleashed its greedy and - above all - its suicidal power. The belief is now that everything - and everyone - is fair game.

Stuffed cats are able to creep more convincingly than live ones.

Translation is that which transforms everything so that nothing changes.

You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be.