The Stranger

That's how every good story must end. When a person stops understanding something, he's on the right track.

The fact is, i don't have a drop of patience. If something goes wrong in my life, I'm not able to wait for an auspicious moment to remedy the situation. I'd rather spoil everything once and for all, as long as it's today, than subject myself to anguished expectation and breathing exercises with an eye towards the future.

I've never really had any luck with women in my life. Well, at first I was fairly lucky. Then all of a sudden, they all thought they had to get married for some reason. And not to me. It's especially strange, because I almost always fell in love with the very smart girls. Even that didn't help matters. I don't see how any intelligent person could seriously want to get married.

Where do rumors come from, Sir Kofa?" i was truly curious to know the answer. "Where don't they come from? I suppose the majority of rumors are a combination of leaked information and the astouding imaginations of numerous storytellers. And, of course, the hope that things aren't really as boring as they seem on the surface.

There is nothing simpler than carrying out the impossible. You just have to imagine what you must do, and turn your mind off completely, When you come to your senses, everything is already behind you.

Please, don't spare my self-confidence, sir. I never take it with me when I leave home.

I fumbled around in the basement of my soul in search of the small, sensible fellow who often comes to the rescue during emergencies. It looked like he wasn't home.

People are made in such a way that if something inexplicable happens to them, they write it off to an overheated imagination.

Well, there were, of course, people to call. A good fifty names in my telephone book, which I had acquired only a month ago. But there was no one I wanted to talk to, much less see. Maybe I was just depressed. In that case, long live depression! That hypothetical malady made it very easy for me to take the most important decision in my life.

Are you sometimes scared, or happy, just like that, out of the blue, apropos of nothing? You hurry out on some stupid errand, and suddenly you feel a thrill of improbablem intense, boundless joy? Or it happens that everything seems to be in its rightful placem your beloved is sleeping sweetly next to you, you're young and full of as much energy as a puppy - and suddenly you feel you're suspended in emptiness, and a leaden sorrow clamps down on your heart, as though you were dead. Not only that, but as though you had never been alive. And sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, and you can't remember who that chap is, or why he's there at all. Then your own reflection turns around and walks away, and you watch silently as it retreats. [..] It happens because something ineffable is reaching for us - we never know where and when it will show up and start tugging on our sleave.