The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.