Leibniz's dictum about the melancholy of the eternal structure is my basic tenet. I know I'll die in melancholy, I know that one day, in profound melancholy, even the starry sky will fall in, yet there are also moments when I suddenly feel that eternity does endure and that I am; that sometimes I even am who am. What Moses was told by God.

Bohmuil Hrabal, in conversation