After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of those books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered while beyond those walls, in the outside world, people allowed life to pass by in afternoons of football and radio soaps, content to do little more than gaze at their navels.

Are you not tempted to create a story for which men and women would live and die, for which they would be capable of killing and allowing them to be killed, of sacrificing and condemning themselves, of handling over their souls?

It is difficult to hate an idea. That requires a certain intellectual discipline and a slightly obsessive, sick mind. There aren’t too many of those. It’s much easier to hate someone with a recognizable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group. . .anything.

Never trust anyone, Daniel, especially the people you admire. Those are the ones who will make you suffer the worst blows.

Truth is, only the useless get to the top in this country.

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

Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.