The book borrower...proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures...as by his failure to read these books.

Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.

The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

If you can't stop thinking of it, don't stop working for it.

The bed is just a decoration in a busy man's bedroom.

You are perfect and have no synonym

I'm kind of a low-key guy. The spotlight doesn't suit me. I'm more of a side dish--cole slaw or French fries or a Wham! backup singer.

Being an only child, my mother reared me very carefully.

I wish I could speak Spanish, because it would be a lot easier to play more interesting roles.

In the end it is the musician who actually plays the notes. The impresario - or the project leader - is only there to make sure that happens. That is a very different type of management mind-set.

One minute you're bleeding. The next minute you're hemorrhaging. The next minute you're painting the Mona Lisa.

Do not be proud just because you have brute force, because an animal has brute force too! Either you be proud with your intellect and with your thoughts or be silent and sit down!

The true success is to labour.