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

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

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.

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

She loves you, loathes you, treats you well, then ill. Like a leech or a surgeon's knife, she's double-edged: sometimes she'll cure, but sometimes she will kill.

The world is full of banks and rivers running between them, of men and women crossing bridges and fords, unaware of the consequences, not looking back or beneath their feet, and with no loose change for the boatman.

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