The Only Way To Write

The Love I Felt For Her On That Train Ride Had A Capital And Provinces, Parishes And A Vatican, An Orange Planet And Many Sullen Moons -- It Was Systemic And It Was Complete.

Italy Has Sun And Tomatoes, And Russia Just Has Real Problems.

That's What Tyrants Do, I Guess. They Make You Covet Their Attention; They Make You Confuse Attention For Mercy.

In The First Few Pages, Kundera Discusses Several Abstract Historical Figures: Robespierre, Nietzsche, Hitler. For Eunice's Sake, I Wanted Him To Get To The Plot, To Introduce Actual "living" Characters - I Recalled This Was A Love Story - And To Leave The World Of Ideas Behind. Here We Were, Two People Lying In Bed, Eunice's Worried Head Propped On My Collarbone, And I Wanted Us To Feel Something In Common. I Wanted This Complex Language, This Surge Of Intellect, To Be Processed Into Love. Isn't That How They Used To Do It A Century Ago, People Reading Poetry To One Another?

My Parents Were Constantly Afraid They Would Lose Their Jobs. The Idea That We Were Always A Paycheck Away From Disaster Was Drilled Into Me.