Javier Marías

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Es curioso cómo el pensamiento incurre en lo inverosímil, cómo se lo permite momentáneamente, cómo fantasea o se hace supersticioso para descansar un rato o encontrar alivio, cómo es capaz de negar los hechos y hacer que retroceda el tiempo, aunque sea un instante. Cómo se parece al sueño

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For me that's the only way of understanding a particular term that everyone here bandies about quite happily, but which clearly can't be quite that straight forward because it doesn't exist in many languages, only in Italian and Spanish, as far as I know, but then again, I don't know that many languages. Perhaps in German too, although I can't be sure: el enamoramiento--the state of falling or being in love, or perhaps infatuation. I'm referring to the noun, the concept; the adjective, the condition, are admittedly more familiar, at least in French, although not in English, but there are words that approximate that meaning ... We find a lot of people funny, people who amuse and charm us and inspire affection and even tenderness, or who please us, captivate us, and can even make us momentarily mad, we enjoy their body and their company or both those things, as is the case for me with you and as I've experienced before with other women, on other occasions, although only a few. Some become essential to us, the force of habit is very strong and ends up replacing or even supplanting almost everything else. It can supplant love, for example, but not that state of being in love, it's important to distinguish between the two things, they're easily confused, but they're not the same ... It's very rare to have a weakness, a genuine weakness for someone, and for that someone to provoke in us that feeling of weakness

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Unlikely truths are useful and life is full of them, far more than the very worst of novels, no novel would ever dare give houseroom to the infinite number of chances and coincidences that can occur in a single lifetime, let alone all those that have already occurred and continue to occur. It's quite shameful the way reality imposes no limits on itself

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The soldier doesn’t usually act on his own initiative, he doesn’t harbour feelings of hatred or resentment or jealousy, he isn’t motivated by long-held desires or personal ambition; the only motivating force is a vague, rhetorical, empty patriotism, for those soldiers, that is, who are moved by such feelings or allow themselves to be convinced

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We don't object to our date of birth, so why object to our date of death, which is just as much a matter of chance