At the beginning (what are these quotes called? an epigraph!): "The world is weary of me, And I am weary of it." — Charles D'Orléans

"Time passed bizarrely between them: although nothing was said, and the silence now permanently established over the table should have given the sensation of total gravity, it seemed that the seconds, and even the minutes, flowed with astonishing speed" (12).

"The animalistic will to live manifests itself in rapid transformations... The flower's will to live manifests itself in the dazzling spots of color which break the greenish banality of the natural landscape..." (18).

"The question of beauty is secondary in painting..." (19).

"It's curious, you might think that the need to express yourself, to leave a trace in the world, is a powerful force, yet in general that's not enough. What works best, what pushed people most violently to surpass themselves, is still the pure and simple need for money" (23).

"... in black capital letters, was the title of the exhibition: THE MAP IS MORE INTERESTING THAN THE TERRITORY" (45).

"The colors of the objects in the world can be represented by a certain number of primary colors, the minimum number, to achieve an almost realistic representation, is three. But you can perfectly build a colorimetric chart on the basis of four, five, six, or even more primary colors; the spectrum of representation would in this way become more extensive and subtle" (73).

"Thus free-market economics redrew the geography of the world in terms of the expectations of the clientele, whether the latter moved to indulge in tourism or to earn a living" (93).

"Life could rather be characterized as a succession of levels, separated by sudden falls" (149).

• Implies, perhaps, that our perception of time and our own lives is discrete.