In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silence, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.

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

I was secretly convinced that with such a marvel one would be able to write anything, from novels to encyclopedias, and letters whose supernatural power would surpass any postal limitations--a letter written with that pen would reach the most remote corners of the world, even that unknowable place to which my father said my mother had gone and from where she would never return.

Some like to believe it's the book that chooses the person.

It seems that in the advanced stages of stupidity, a lack of ideas is compensated for by an excess of ideologies.

It's only worth staying in bed if you're young and in good company.

There was no more good or evil in this world than we imagine there to be, either out of greed or out of innocence. Or sometimes madness.