I think of reading a book as no less an experience than travelling or falling in love.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

Future shackled is when uncertainty is the enemy that must be beaten into submission.

I've never seen grief like it. Grief like that, it's like an animal. She's not eating. She's not sleeping. She's whimpering. She's sluggish. She's not herself

Having her favorite breakfast always made her feel cozy, like a warm blanket was being wrapped around her.

If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.

It's in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.

Over a period of years he collected thousands of discples. Many became his students. Many didn't become his students but whenever he was in town they would go and see him.

Women who say it's not O.K. are [interpreted as] wet blankets or sore losers.

One negative person can create a miserable office environment for everyone else.

As you begin to think more in terms of importance, you begin to see time differently.