Tereza Quotes

“The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful. From the time he met Tereza, no woman had the right to leave the slightest impression on that part of his brain.”

“We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the “Es muss sein!” to our own great love.”

“Tomas often thought of Tereza’s remark about his friend Z. and came to the conclusion that the love story of his life exemplified not “Es muss sein! ” (It must be so), but rather “Es konnte auch anders sein” (It could just as well be otherwise).”

“She loved to walk down the street with a book under her arm. It had the same significance for her as an elegant cane for the dandy a century ago. It differentiated her from others.”

“When a private talk over a bottle of wine is broadcast on the radio, what can it mean but that the world is turning into a concentration camp? […] A concentration camp is the complete obliteration of privacy.”

″ ‘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.”