As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows.

The world's very small when you don't have anywhere to go.

Memories are worse than bullets.

I leafed through the pages, inhaling the enchanted scent of promise that comes with all new books, and stopped to read the start of a sentence that caught my eye.

Books hold no passports. There's only one true literary tradition: the human.

Over time, loneliness gets inside you and doesn't go away.

The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.