Normal people bring children into the world; we novelists bring books. We are condemned to put our whole lives into them, even though they hardly ever thank us for it. We are condemned to die in their pages and sometimes even to let our books be the ones who, in the end, will take our lives.

It's up to you how you waste your time and money. I'm staying here to read: life's too short.

A good father. A man with a head, a heart, and a soul. A man capable of listening, of leading and respecting a child, and not of drowning his own defects in him. Someone whom a child will not only love because he's his father, but will also admire for the person he is. Someone he would want to grow up to resemble.

Where he had failed, I would triumph. Where he had lost his way, I would find the path out of the labyrinth.

I'm not talking to anyone, I'm delivering a monologue. It's the inebriated man's prerogative.

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

There are people you remember and people you dream of.