A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much, if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?...I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing; but the eye that blinks, that is something.

A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.

... an artist is a person first. He is an individual. If there is no person, there is no artist.

Two hundred or more years ago most people on the planet were never aware of any reality other than the one into which they were brought up.

A writer is a strange instrument of our species, a harp of sorts, fine-tuned to the dark contradictions of life.

As a species we are always hungry for new knowledge.