Information is the religion of the modern world.

Jogging, I believe they call it. It seems to be an epidemic psychological illness afflicting Americans these days. A form of masochism, like the flagellantes in the Middle Ages.

I respect a man who can recognize a quotation. It's a dying art.

It's the only thing that keeps me going these days, travelling. Changes of scene, changes of faces

It was Adam Appleby's misfortune that at the moment of awakening from sleep his consciousness was immediately flooded with everything he least wanted to think about

Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age. They shouldn't have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.

to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing