In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: its the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection is taken as a full-scale revolution.

I measure my life in sentences pressed out, line by line, like the lustrous ooze on the underside of the snail, the snail's secret open seam, its wound, leaking attar.

Traveling is seeing; it is the implicit that we travel by.

To listen acutely is to be powerless, even if you sit on a throne.

Above all, a book is a riverbank for the river of language. Language without the riverbank is only television talk - a free fall, a loose splash, a spill.