"These are things you laugh about even when they hurt" (26)

"I believe we all have, in our conscience as in our body, some tender, concealed spots that we do not like to be reminded of. We don't even know what they are, but we know they're there." (86)

"You see things less clearly when you open your eyes too wide." (91)

"[An insect believed] that good health is the birthright of all and must surely return when it abandons us. These were errors that can easily be excused in an insect, which lives only a single season and hasn't time to accumulate experience." (106)

"I understood finally what perfect human health was when I realized that for her the present was a tangible truth within which one could curl up and be warm." (157)

"I spent half a day before the portraits of the founders of the house of Medici, and I...