Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion

Fate," Bizzy said, "adjusts quicker 'n a hungery dog can lick a dish.

They had been talking about his friend Z. when she announced, "If I hadn't met you, I'd certainly have fallen in love with him."Even then, her words had left Tomas in a strange state of melancholy, and now he realized it was only a matter of chance that Tereza loved him and not his friend Z. Apart from her consummated love for Tomas, there were, in the realm of pos­sibility, an infinite number of unconsummated loves for other men. 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).

In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money cannot buy...to wit--the wag of a dog's tail.

With some stories, you really can't rush things. And it's often best just to sit back and enjoy the journey for what it is.

Many writers make the mistake of making their readers appear like Lazarus, without any iota of care, throwing down books to readers to crunch as if they are dogs.