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The Phrase "it's Absolutely The Same With Me, I..." Seems To Be An Approving Echo, A Way Of Continuing The Other's Thought, But That Is An Illusion: In Reality It Is A Brute Revolt Against A Brutal Violence, An Effort To Free Our Own Ear From Bondage And To Occupy The Enemy's Ear By Force. Because All Of Man's Life Among His Kind Is Nothing Other Than A Battle To Seize The Ear Of Others.

-Milan Kundera

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The Phrase "it's Absolutely

Milan Kundera

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The Phrase "it's Absolutely The Same With Me, I..." Seems To Be An Approving Echo, A Way Of Continuing The Other's Thought, But That Is An Illusion: In Reality It Is A Brute Revolt Against A Brutal Violence, An Effort To Free Our Own Ear From Bondage And To Occupy The Enemy's Ear By Force. Because All Of Man's Life Among His Kind Is Nothing Other Than A Battle To Seize The Ear Of Others.

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The Love Between Dog And Man Is Idyllic, Dogs Were Never Expelled From Paradise.

But Man, Because He Has Only One Life To Live, Cannot Conduct Experiments To Test Whether To Follow His Passion (compassion) Or Not.

Between The Approximation Of The Idea And The Precision Of Reality There Was A Small Gap Of The Unimaginable, And It Was This Hiatus That Gave Him No Rest.

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The Goals We Pursue Are Always Veiled. A Girl Who Longs For Marriage Longs For Something She Knows Nothing About. The Boy Who Hankers After Fame Has No Idea What Fame Is. The Thing That Gives Our Every Move Its Meaning Is Always Totally Unknown To Us.

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...people Don't Respect The Morning. An Alarm Clock Violently Wakes Them Up, Shatters Their Sleep Like The Blow Of An Ax, And They Immediately Surrender Themselves To Deadly Haste. Can You Tell Me What Kind Of Day Can Follow A Beginning Of Such Violence? What Happens To People Whose Alarm Clock Daily Gives Them A Small Electric Shock? Each Day They Become More Used To Violence And Less Used To Pleasure.

The Important Thing Is To Abide By The Rule Of Threes. Either You See A Woman Three Times In Quick Succession And Then Never Again, Or You Maintain Relations Over The Years But Make Sure That The Rendezvous Are At Least Three Weeks Apart.

Physical Love Is Unthinkable Without Violence.

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People Are Always Shouting They Want To Create A Better Future. It's Not True. The Future Is An Apathetic Void Of No Interest To Anyone.

He Was No Longer Quite Sure Whether Anything He Had Ever Thought Or Felt Was Truly His Own Property, Or Whether His Thoughts Were Merely A Common Part Of The World’s Store Of Ideas Which Had Always Existed Ready-made And Which People Only Borrowed, Like Books From A Library.

The Phrase "it's Absolutely The Same With Me, I..." Seems To Be An Approving Echo, A Way Of Continuing The Other's Thought, But That Is An Illusion: In Reality It Is A Brute Revolt Against A Brutal Violence, An Effort To Free Our Own Ear From Bondage And To Occupy The Enemy's Ear By Force. Because All Of Man's Life Among His Kind Is Nothing Other Than A Battle To Seize The Ear Of Others.

Seeing Is Limited By Two Borders: Strong Light, Which Blinds, And Total Darkness.

Noise Has One Advantage. It Drowns Out Words.

No Great Movement Designed To Change The World Can Bear To Be Laughed At Or Belittled. Mockery Is A Rust That Corrodes All It Touches.

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In Irena’s Head The Alcohol Plays A Double Role: It Frees Her Fantasy, Encourages Her Boldness, Makes Her Sensual, And At The Same Time It Dims Her Memory. She Makes Love Wildly, Lasciviously, And At The Same Time The Curtain Of Oblivion Wraps Her Lewdness In An All-concealing Darkness. As If A Poet Were Writing His Greatest Poem With Ink That Instantly Disappears.

Yes, It's A Well-known Fact About You: You're Like Death, You Take Everything.

She Knew, Of Course That She Was Being Supremely Unfair, That Franz Was The Best Man She Ever Had- He Was Intelligent, He Understood Her Paintings, He Was Handsome And Good-but The More She Thought About It, The More She Longed To Ravish His Intelligence, Defile His Kindheartedness, And Violate His Powerless Strength

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Without The Meditative Background That Is Criticism, Works Become Isolated Gestures, Historical Accidents, Soon Forgotten.

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Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Art Arises From Sources Other Than Logic." (p.32)

How Could She Feel Nostalgia When He Was Right In Front Of Her? How Can You Suffer From The Absence Of A Person Who Is Present? You Can Suffer Nostalgia In The Presence Of The Beloved If You Glimpse A Future Where The Beloved Is No More.

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There Is Nothing Heavier Than Compassion. Not Even One's Own Pain Weighs So Heavy As The Pain One Feels For Someone, Pain Intensified By The Imagination And Prolonged By A Hundred Echos.

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Oh Lovers! Be Careful In Those Dangerous First Days! Once You've Brought Breakfast In Bed You'll Have To Bring It Forever, Unless You Want To Be Accused Of Lovelessness And Betrayal.

Do You Realize That People Don't Know How To Read Kafka Simply Because They Want To Decipher Him? Instead Of Letting Themselves Be Carried Away By His Unequaled Imagination, They Look For Allegories - And Come Up With Nothing But Clichés: Life Is Absurd (or It Is Not Absurd), God Is Beyond Reach (or Within Reach), Etc. You Can Understand Nothing About Art, Particularly Modern Art, If You Do Not Understand That Imagination Is A Value In Itself.

Now Time Has A Very Different Look; It Is No Longer The Conquering Present Capturing The Future; It Is The Present Conquered And Captured And Carried Off By The Past.

The Day After His Father Left, Franz And His Mother Went Into Town Together, And As They Left Home Franz Noticed That Her Shoes Did Not Match. He Was In A Quandary: He Wanted To Point Out The Mistake, But Was Afraid He Would Hurt Her. So, During The Two Hours They Spent Walking Through The City Together He Kept His Eyes Focused On Her Feet. It Was Then He Had His First Inkling Of What It Means To Suffer.

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Serious Subjects

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The Heaviest Of Burdens Is Simultaneously An Image Of Life's Most Intense Fullfillment. The Heavier The Burden, The Closer Our Lives Come To The Earth, The More Real And Truthful They Become. Conversely, The Absolute Absence Of A Burden Causes Man To Be Lighter Than Air, To Soar Into New Heights, Take Leave Of The Earth And His Earthly Being, And Become Only Half Real, His Movements As Free As They Are Insignificant. What Then Shall We Choose? Weight Or Lightness?

Facts Mean Little Compared To Attitudes. To Contradict Rumor Or Sentiment Is As Futile As Arguing Against A Believer's Faith In The Immaculate Conception. You Have Simply Become A Victim Of Faith, Comrade Assistant.

Once The Writer In Every Individual Comes To Life (and That Time Is Not Far Off), We Are In For An Age Of Universal Deafness And Lack Of Understanding.

Only The Most Naive Of Questions Are Truly Serious.

Questions And Answers

Memory Does Not Make Films, It Makes Photographs.

Believe Me, Nothing Is More Beautiful Than To Carry Out Crazy Ideas. I'd Like My Whole Life To Be One Single Crazy Idea.

Her Kitsch Was The Image Of Home, All Peace, Quiet, And Harmony, And Ruled By A Loving Mother And A Wise Father. It Was An Image That Took Shape In Her After The Death Of Her Parents. The Less Her Life Resembled The Sweetest Of Dreams, The More Sensitive She Was To Its Magic, And More Than Once She Shed Tears When The Ungrateful Daughter In A Sentimental Film Embraced The Neglected Father As The Windows Of The Happy Family's House Shone Out Into The Dying Day.

On The Surface, An Intelligible Lie; Underneath, The Unintelligible Truth.

Unbearable Lightness Of Being

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Nudity Is The Uniform Of The Other Side... Nudity Is A Shroud.

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By Giving The Love Act A Name, If Only An Innocent Little Word Like, "it," He Paved The Way For Other Words, Words That Would Reflect Physical Love As In A Set Of Mirrors.

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The Emotion Of Love Gives All Of Us A Misleading Illusion Of Knowing The Other.

The Serial Number Of A Human Specimen Is The Face, That Accidental And Unrepeatable Combination Of Features. It Reflects Neither Character Nor Soul, Nor What We Call The Self. The Face Is Only The Serial Number Of A Specimen

There Is Such A Thing As Everyday, Ordinary, Vulgar Ecstasy; The Ecstasy Of Anger, The Ecstasy Of Speed At The Wheel, The Ecstasy Of Ear-splitting Noise, Ecstasy In The Soccer Stadium.

I Understood That There Was No Escaping The Memories, That I Was Surround By Them. (p.30)

What's The Matter?" He Asked "nothing" "what Do You Want Me To Do For You?" "i Want You To Be Old. Ten Years Older. Twenty Years Older" What She Meant Was: I Want You To Be Weak. As Weak As I Am.

Business Only Has Two Functions - Innovation And Marketing.

He Took Over Anger To Intimidate Subordinates, And In Time Anger Took Over Him.

Revolution In Love’. Can You Tell Me What You Mean By That? Do You Want Free Love As Against Bourgeois Marriage, Or Monogamy As Against Bourgeois Promiscuity?

Immortality No Longer Interests The Weary Old Man At All.

Yes, If You're Looking For Infinity, Just Close Your Eyes!

Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Two People In Love, Alone, Isolated From The World, That's Beautiful.

Modern Stupidity Means Not Ignorance But The Nonthought Of Received Ideas

The Basis Of The Self Is Not Thought But Suffering, Which Is The Most Fundamental Of All Feelings. While It Suffers, Not Even A Cat Can Doubt Its Unique And Uninterchangeable Self. In Intense Suffering The World Disappears And Each Of Us Is Alone With His Self. Suffering Is The University Of Ego-centrism.

Yes, It's Crazy. Love Is Either Crazy Or It's Nothing At All.

Indeed, The Only Truly Serious Questions Are Ones That Even A Child Can Formulate. Only The Most Naive Of Questions Are Truly Serious. They Are The Questions With No Answers. A Question With No Answer Is A Barrier That Cannot Be Breached. In Other Words, It Is Questions With No Answers That Set The Limit Of Human Possibilities, Describe The Boundaries Of Human Existence.

Questions And Answers

When The Heart Speaks, The Mind Finds It Indecent To Object.

Loves Are Like Empires: When The Idea They Are Founded On Crumbles, They, Too, Fade Away.

In The Love Poetry Of Every Age, The Woman Longs To Be Weighed Down By The Man's Body.

Metaphors Are Dangerous. Metaphors Are Not To Be Trifled With.

A Man Is Responsible For His Ignorance.

In Her Presence I Could Dare Everything: Sincerity, Emotion, Pathos.

La Memoria No Guarda Películas, Guarda Fotografías.

It Takes So Little, So Infinitely Little, For A Person To Cross The Border Beyond Which Everything Loses Meaning: Love, Convictions, Faith, History. Human Life -- And Herein Lies Its Secret -- Takes Place In The Immediate Proximity Of That Border, Even In Direct Contact With It; It Is Not Miles Away, But A Fraction Of An Inch.

Sometimes You Make Up Your Mind About Something Without Knowing Why, And Your Decision Persists By The Power Of Inertia. Every Year It Gets Harder To Change.

Dreaming Is Not Merely An Act Of Communication; It Is Also An Aesthetic Activity, A Game Of The Imagination, A Game That Is A Value In Itself.

So She Stood Naked In Front Of The Young Man And At This Moment Stopped Playing The Game.

The Stupidity Of People Comes From Having An Answer For Everything. The Wisdom Of The Novel Comes From Having A Question For Everything. The Novelist Teaches The Reader To Comprehend The World As A Question. There Is Wisdom And Tolerance In That Attitude. In A World Built On Sacrosanct Certainties The Novel Is Dead.

Children, Never Look Back!" And This Meant That We Must Never Allow The Future To Be Weighed Down By Memory . For Children Have No Past, And That Is The Whole Secret Of The Magical Innocence Of Their Smiles.

The Greek Word For "return" Is Nostos. Algos Means "suffering." So Nostalgia Is The Suffering Caused By An Unappeased Yearning To Return.

Without Realizing It, The Individual Composes His Life According To The Laws Of Beauty Even In Times Of Greatest Distress.

Coincidence In Life

Kitsch Excludes Everything From Its Purview Which Is Essentially Unacceptable In Human Existence.

Unbearable Lightness Of Being

Once Her Love Had Been Publicized, It Would Gain Weight, Become A Burden.

The Purpose Of The Poetry Is Not To Dazzle Us With An Astonishing Thought, But To Make One Moment Of Existence Unforgettable And Worthy Of Unbearable Nostalgia.

When I Was A Little Boy In Short Pants, I Dreamed About A Miraculous Ointment That Would Make Me Invisible. Then I Became An Adult, Began To Write, And Wanted To Be Successful. Now I'm Successful And Would Like To Have The Ointment That Would Make Me Invisible.

Listening To A News Broadcast Is Like Smoking A Cigarette And Crushing The Butt In The Ashtray.

You Can't Measure The Mutual Affection Of Two Human Beings By The Number Of Words They Exchange.

Perhaps The Reason We Are Unable To Love Is That We Yearn To Be Loved, That Is, We Demand Something - Love - From Our Partner Instead Of Delivering Ourselves Up To Him Demand-free And Asking For Nothing But His Company.

Eroticism Is Like A Dance: One Always Leads The Other.

I Have A Strong Will To Love You For Eternity.

But When The Strong Were Too Weak To Hurt The Weak, The Weak Had To Be Strong Enough To Leave.

Anyone Whose Goal Is 'something Higher' Must Expect Someday To Suffer Vertigo.

Culture Is Perishing In Overproduction, In An Avalanche Of Words, In The Madness Of Quantity.

Humanity's True Moral Test, Its Fundamental Test…consists Of Its Attitude Towards Those Who Are At Its Mercy: Animals.

And There Lies The Horror: The Past We Remember Is Devoid Of Time. Impossible To Reexperience A Love The Way We Reread A Book Or Resee A Film.

The Senator Had Only One Argument In His Favour: His Feeling. When The Heart Speaks, The Mind Finds It Indecent To Object. In The Realm Of Kitsch, The Dictatorship Of The Heart Reigns Supreme.

Indeed, The Only Truly Serious Questions Are Ones That Even A Child Can Formulate. Only The Most Naive Of Questions Are Truly Serious.

Questions And Answers

Kitsch Causes Two Tears To Flow In Quick Succession. The First Tear Says: How Nice To See Children Running On The Grass! The Second Tear Says: How Nice To Be Moved, Together With All Mankind, By Children Running On The Grass!

A Worker May Be The Hammer's Master, But The Hammer Still Prevails. A Tool Knows Exactly How It Is Meant To Be Handled, While The User Of The Tool Can Only Have An Approximate Idea.

To Be Mortal Is The Most Basic Human Experience, And Yet Man Has Never Been Able To Accept It, Grasp It, And Behave Accordingly. Man Doesn't Know How To Be Mortal. And When He Dies, He Doesn't Even Know How To Be Dead.

The Very Beginning Of Genesis Tells Us That God Created Man In Order To Give Him Dominion Over Fish And Fowl And All Creatures. Of Course, Genesis Was Written By A Man, Not A Horse. There Is No Certainty That God Actually Did Grant Man Dominion Over Other Creatures. What Seems More Likely, In Fact, Is That Man Invented God To Sanctify The Dominion That He Usurped For Himself Over The Cow And The Horse.

The Irresistible Proliferation Of Graphomania Shows Me That Everyone Without Exception Bears A Potential Writer Within Him, So That The Entire Human Species Has Good Reason To Go Down Into The Streets And Shout: We Are All Writers! For Everyone Is Pained By The Thought Of Disappearing, Unheard And Unseen, Into An Indifferent Universe, And Because Of That Everyone Wants, While There Is Still Time, To Turn Himself Into A Universe Of Words. One Morning (and It Will Be Soon), When Everyone Wakes Up As A Writer, The Age Of Universal Deafness And Incomprehension Will Have Arrived.

The Novel Is A Territory Where One Does Not Make Assertions; It Is A Territory Of Play And Of Hypotheses.

The Moment Kafka Attracts More Attenetion Than Joseph K., Kafka's Posthumous Death Begins.

To Rebel Against Being Born A Woman Seemed As Foolish To Her As To Take Pride In It.

Optimism Is The Opium Of The People.

Only After A While Did It Occur To Me (in Spite Of The Chilly Silence Which Surrounded Me) That My Story Was Not Of The Tragic Sort, But Rather Of The Comic Variety. At Any Rate That Afforded Me Some Comfort.

Totalitarianism Is Neither Left Nor Right, And Within Its Empire Both Will Perish. I Was Never A Believer, But After Seeing Czech Catholics Persecuted During The Stalinist Terror, I Felt The Deepest Solidarity With Them. What Separated Us, The Belief In God, Was Secondary To What United Us. In Prague, They Hanged The Socialists And The Priests. Thus A Fraternity Of The Hanged Was Born.

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A Route Differs From A Road Not Only Because It Is Solely Intended For Vehicles, But Also Because It Is Merely A Line That Connects One Point With Another. A Route Has No Meaning In Itself; Its Meaning Derives Entirely From The Two Points That It Connects. A Road Is A Tribute To Space. Every Stretch Of Road Has Meaning In Itself And Invites Us To Stop. A Route Is The Triumphant Devaluation Of Space, Which Thanks To It Has Been Reduced To A Mere Obstacle To Human Movement And A Waste Of Time.

There Is No Perfection Only Life

All Great Novels, All True Novels, Are Bisexual.

For A Novelist, A Given Historic Situation Is An Anthropologic Laboratory In Which He Explores His Basic Question: What Is Human Existence?

While People Are Fairly Young And The Musical Composition Of Their Lives Is Still In Its Opening Bars, They Can Go About Writing It Together And Sharing Motifs (the Way Tomas And Sabina Exchanged The Motif Of The Bowler Hat), But If They Meet When They Are Older, Like Franz And Sabina, Their Musical Compositions Are More Or Less Complete, And Every Motif, Every Object, Every Word Means Something Different To Each Of Them.

We All Need Someone To Look At Us. We Can Be Divided Into Four Categories According To The Kind Of Look We Wish To Live Under . . . The Fourth Category, The Rarest, Is The Category Of People Who Live In The Imaginary Eyes Of Those Who Are Not Present. They Are The Dreamers.

The Reign Of Imagagology Begins Where History Ends.

But Deep Down She Said To Herself, Franz Maybe Strong, But His Strength Is Directed Outward; When It Comes To The People He Lives With, The People He's Loves, He's Weak. Franz's Weakness Is Called Goodness. Franz Would Never Give Sabina Orders. He Would Never Command Her, As Tomas Had, To Lay The Mirror On The Floor And Walk Back And Forth On It Naked. Not That He Lacks Sensuality; He Simply Lacks The Strength To Give Orders. There Are Things That Can Be Accomplished Only By Violence. Physical Love Is Unthinkable Without Violence.

Great Novels Are Always A Little More Intelligent Than Their Authors.

Hate Traps Us By Binding Us Too Tightly To Our Adversary.

Jealousy Isn't A Pleasant Quality, But If It Isn't Overdone (and If It's Combined With Modesty), Apart From Its Inconvenience There's Even Something Touching About It.

Because Beyond Their Practical Function, All Gestures Have A Meaning That Exceeds The Intention Of Those Who Make Them; When People In Bathing Suits Fling Themselves Into The Water, It Is Joy Itself That Shows In The Gesture, Notwithstanding Any Sadness The Divers May Actually Feel. When Someone Jumps Into The Water Fully Clothed, It Is Another Thing Entirely: The Only Person Who Jumps Into The Water Fully Clothed Is A Person Trying To Drown; And A Person Trying To Drown Does Not Dive Headfirst; He Lets Himself Fall: Thus Speaks The Immemorial Language Of Gestures.

Extremism Means Borders Beyond Which Life Ends, And A Passion For Extremism, In Art And In Politics, Is A Veiled Longing For Death.

He Kept Recalling Her Lying On His Bed; She Reminded Him Of No One In His Former Life.

Merely By Being Born Intelligent, You Right Away Find Yourself In Absolute Exile.

Finding Yourself

We Pass Through The Present With Our Eyes Blindfolded. We Are Permitted Merely To Sense And Guess At What We Are Actually Experiencing. Only Later When The Cloth Is Untied Can We Glance At The Past And Find Out What We Have Experienced And What Meaning It Has.

Radio... Force-feeds Us Music... Everywhere And All The Time... Sewage-water Music In Which Music Is Dying.

Living, There Is No Happiness In That. Living: Carrying One’s Painful Self Through The World. But Being, Being Is Happiness. Being: Becoming A Fountain, A Fountain On Which The Universe Falls Like Warm Rain.

Happiness Is The Longing For Repetition.

She Had Come To Him To Escape Her Mother's World, A World Where All Bodies Were Equal. She Had Come To Him To Make Her Body Unique, Irreplaceble. But He, Too Had Drawn An Equal Sign Between Her And The Rest Of Them: He Kissed Them All Alike, Stroked Them All Alike, Made No, Absolutely No Distiction Between Tereza's Body And The Other Bodies. He Sent Her Back To The World She Tried To Escape, Sent To March Naked With The Other Naked Women

For The Body Is Temporal And Thought Is Eternal And The Shimmering Essence Of Flame Is An Image Of Thought.

People Fascinated By The Idea Of Progress Never Suspect That Every Step Forward Is Also A Step On The Way To The End.

The Young Man Called The Waiter And Paid. Then He Got Up And Said To The Girl: 'we're Going.' Where To?' The Girl Feigned Surprise. Don't Ask, Just Come On,' Said The Young Man. Is That Any Way To Talk To Me?' It's The Way I Talk To Whores.

Chance And Chance Alone Has A Message For Us. Everything That Occurs Out Of Necessity, Everything Expected, Repeated Day In And Day Out, Is Mute. Only Chance Can Speak To Us.

But Which Was The Real Me? Let Me Be Perfectly Honest: I Was A Man Of Many Faces. (p.33)

I Find Myself Fascinating.

I Am Not In Favor Of Imposing Happiness On People. Everyone Has A Right To His Bad Wine, To His Stupidity, And To His Dirty Fingernails.

Laughing Deeply Is Living Deeply.

Art Is The Human Disposition Of Sensible Or Intelligible Matter For An Esthetic End.

The Ludicrous Element In Our Feeling Does Not Make Them Any Less Authentic.

The Difference Between The University Graduate And The Autodidact Lies Not So Much In The Extent Of Knowledge As In The Extent Of Vitality And Self-confidence.

Self Confidence

People Derived Too Much Pleasure From Seeing Their Fellow Man Morally Humiliated To Spoil That Pleasure By Hearing Out An Explanation.

[w]e Must Never Allow The Future To Collapse Under The Burden Of Memory.

In The Realm Of Totalitarian Kitsch, All Answers Are Given In Advance And Preclude Any Questions.

Unbearable Lightness Of Being

People Are Going Deaf Because Music Is Played Louder And Louder, But Because They're Going Deaf, It Has To Be Played Louder Still.

Since The Insignificance Of All Things Is Our Lot, We Should Not Bear It As An Affliction But Learn To Enjoy It.

Most People Willingly Deceive Themselves With A Doubly False Faith; They Believe In Eternal Memory (of Men, Things, Deeds, Peoples) And In Rectification (of Deeds, Errors, Sins, Injustice). Both Are Sham. The Truth Lies At The Opposite End Of The Scale: Everything Will Be Forgotten And Nothing Will Be Rectified. All Rectification (both Vengeance And Forgiveness) Will Be Taken Over By Oblivion.

The Sound Of Laughter Is Like The Vaulted Dome Of A Temple Of Happiness.

To Put It Another Way, Every Love Relationship Is Based Upon Unwritten Conventions Rashly Agreed Upon By The Lovers During The First Weeks Of Their Love. On The One Hand, They Are Living A Sort Of Dream; On The Other, Without Realizing It, They Are Drawing Up The Fine Print Of Their Contracts Like The Most Hard-nosed Of Lawyers. O Lovers! Be Wary During Those Perilous First Days! If You Serve The Other Party Breakfast In Bed, You Will Be Obliged To Continue Same In Perpetuity Or Face Charges Of Animosity And Treason!

No Episode Is A Priori Condemned To Remain An Episode Forever, For Every Event, No Matter How Trivial, Conceals Within Itself The Possibility Of Sooner Or Later Becoming The Cause Of Other Events And Thus Changing Into A Story Or An Adventure. Episodes Are Like Land Mines. The Majority Of Them Never Explode, But The Most Unremarkable Of Them May Someday Turn Into A Story That Will Prove Fateful To You.

The Psychological And Physiological Mechanism Of Love Is So Complex That At A Certain Period In His Life A Young Man Must Concentrate All His Energy On Coming To Grips With It, And In This Way He Misses The Actual Content Of The Love: The Woman He Loves. (in This He Is Much Like A Young Violinist Who Cannot Concentrate On The Emotional Content Of A Piece Until The Technique Required To Play It Comes Automatically.)

Today I Know This: When It Comes Time To Take Stock, The Most Painful Wound Is That Of Broken Friendships; And There Is Nothing More Foolish Than To Sacrifice A Friendship To Politics.

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