I wandered off, walking through streets that seemed emptier than ever, thinking that if I didn't stop, if I kept on walking, I wouldn't notice that the world I thought I knew was no longer there.

The only use for military service is that it reveals the number of morons in the population," he would remark. "And that can be discovered in the first two weeks; there's no need for two years. Army, Marriage, the Church and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yes, go on, laugh.

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

that as long as we are being remembered, we remain alive.

None of us are what we once were.

A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.

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