A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.

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

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

Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

He would have liked to know that somebody wanted to keep him alive, that someone remembered him. He used to say that we exist as long as somebody remembers us.

In those days I learned that nothing is more frightening than a hero who lives to tell his story, to tell what all those who fell at his side will never be able to tell.

Our world will not die as the result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, or making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that.