Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not.

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.

To be frank, I find religion rather offensive.

The highest wisdom is to know that you know nothing.

Now, on this road trip, my mind seemed to uncrinkle, to breathe, to present to itself a cure for a disease it had not, until now, known it had.

Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake.

We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection

Wages are determined by the bitter struggle between capitalist and worker.

There isn't a political price to be paid yet for doing nothing. People need to get upset with President Bush. People need to get upset with their Congressmen.

The work element comes into it as well - how much you train and how much work you put into your craft, in the same way a carpenter would perhaps work under a great teacher, etc.

I'm really nervous, because it's actually happening. You forget after a while when you start talking about something that it's actually going to happen.

Once you place that crown of liar on your head, you can take it off again, but it leaves a stain for all time.