I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole.

As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.

People's fates are simplified by their names.

There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.

...how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?

Learning is the art of ignoring.

In five minutes the earth would be a desert, and you cling to books.