“And this is difficult if you have not entirely persuaded yourself. It is especially tricky to do this if you are also naked, and making two cups of coffee.”

It is a method for investigating how much unreality reality can bear.

Krzhizhanovsky wanted to perform imaginary experiments with the nature of time and space.

The problem with breaking up with someone, if you are a little unsure – and so often, people are unsure – is that breaking up involves persuasion.

Outside, in the streets, the Communist state was busy performing such experiments for real.

This is because there is much more risk.

Once you have kissed secretly, it is very difficult not to have sex.

When a clandestine couple kisses, it is much more likely that sex will immediately follow.

You have to persuade your ex that it is better this way for everyone.

It would be impolite not to have sex.

In response, Krzhizhanovsky’s prose has a recklessly unstable tone in which delighted examination of impossible worlds can slip into ferocious political sarcasm.

Nothing’s going to keep me from making music. If I were in the want-ads in the back of the paper or playing to six people at a coffee shop, I’d still love to make music.

A twenty three year old hits on me in a coffee shop in venice, and I ask him if father is single.

I think I’ll always remember your birthday and the way you took your coffee because they’ll forever be pieces of you I cannot burn.

I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it. That’s why I love coffee shops and public places – I mean, they’re all out there.

I’m the coffee shop kinda person; the kind who loved to live unless lives in doses of caffeine.

I woke up this morning and for once, I had no desire to drink my morning coffee. Is that how it felt for you to wake up and never return?

Things that really matter are the things that gold can’t buy, so let’s have another cup o’ coffee and let’s have another piece o’ pie.

Peace is when I am cuddled up in a snug wool blanket with a hot coffee in hand without worry in mind, so I can dream about red sunsets and the scent of warm, sun kissed bodies.