Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being

...suddenly he realised that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff, dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head, they were his insomnia, his illness.
[p.94]

She would have liked to tell him that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.
[p.100]

They tried to look cheerful (for and about him) and pep him up a bit, and after a long wait he took pity on them, tottered over on his three legs, and let her put on the collar. "He's just doing it for us," said Tereza, "He didn't want to go for a walk. He's just doing it to make us happy."

It was sad, what she said, yet without realising it they were happy. They were happy not in spite of their sadness but thanks to it. They were holding hands and both had the same image in their eyes: a limping dog who represented ten years of their lives.
[p.293]

She had summoned him farther and farther down after her like the nymphs who had lured unsuspecting villagers to the marches and left them down there to drown... She had summoned him to follow her as if wishing to test him again and again, to test his love for her; she had summoned him persistently and here he was, tired and grey, with stiffened fingers that would never again be capable of holding a scalpel. Good God, had they had to cover all that distance just to make her believe he loved her? ...

"Haven't you noticed I'm happy here, Tereza?" ...

She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: we are at the last station. The happiness meant: we are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness. [the end]

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