my favorite book...

is "the unbearable lightness of being" by milan kundera. and the following passage will show why...

"He kept recalling her lying on his bed; she reminded him of no one in his former life. She was neither mistress nor wife. She was a child whom he had taken from a bulrush basket that had been daubed with pitch and sent to the riverbank of his bed. She fell asleep. He knelt down next to her. Her feverous breath quickened and she gave out a quick moan. He pressed his face to hers and whispered calming words into her sleep. After a while he felt her breath return to normal and her face rise unconsciously to meet his. He smelled the delicate aroma of her fever and breathed it in, as if trying to glut himself with the intimacy of her body. And all at once he fancied she had been with him for many years and was dying. He had a sudden clear feeling that he would not survive her death. He would lie down beside her and wnat to die with her..."

beautiful stuff, that. and here's more:

"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."

and:

"Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happeneed at all. If we only have one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."

oh, and why not:


"Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love."

and since we're at it:

"Tomas came to this conclusion: Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman.)"