Becoming a book collector is like joining a religion: it’s for life.

Because God and the devil could be one and the same thing, and everybody understood it in his own way.

...the problem with words is that once spoken, they cannot find their way back to the speaker alone.

Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.

Actually loneliness has a kind of fascination; it's a state of egotistical, inner grace that you can achieve only by standing guard on old, forgotten roads that no one travels anymore.

Later, with time, I learned that although all men are capable of good and evil, the worst among them are those who, when they commit evil, do so by shielding themselves in the authority of others, in their subordination, or in the excuse of following orders. And even worse are those who believe they are justified by their God.

You don't choose your friends, they choose you, and you either reject them or you accept them without reservations.