" An enigmatic lack of curiosity about the future that prevented him from enjoying the present.

But what someone else feels always belongs to the world of the imagination. You never know for certain,

What we begin with reluctance or even with a sense of repulsion, can end up drawing us in by sheer force of habit or an unexpected taste for repetition.

You would need to have lost an awful lot before you’d be willing to renounce what you have, especially if what you have is part of a long-term plan, part of a decision that contained a large dose of obstinacy.

The desire to know is a curse and the greatest source of misfortune;

The Buenos Aires accent, at least to Spanish ears, does always tend to sound like a caricature of itself.

There’s nothing like curiosity and comedy to distract us—if only for an instant—from our sorrows and anxieties.

What at first repels can end up attracting, after a swift moment of adjustment or approval, once you’ve made up your mind.

The greater your grief or shock, the greater your state of desolation and numbness and abandonment, the lower your defenses and the fewer your qualms; professional seducers know this well and are always on the lookout for misfortunes.

Even when things are happening and are present, they, too, require the imagination, because it’s the only thing that highlights certain events and teaches us to distinguish, while they are happening, the memorable from the unmemorable.

Going back is the very worst infidelity.

When something comes to an end, even the something you most want to end, you suddenly regret that ending and begin to miss it.

You never stop feeling intimidated by someone who intimidated you from the outset.

Not being able to choose isn’t an affront, it’s standard practice. It is in most countries, as it is in ours, despite the collective illusion. "

― Javier Marías , Berta Isla