I was inspired by the marvelous example of Giacometti, the great sculptor. He always said that his dream was to do a bust so small that it could enter a matchbook, but so heavy that no one could lift it. That's what a good book should be.

My students are very special. They are my source of pride, my source of joy, my source of hope. I am terribly fond of my students.

If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we'll have to fight again we wouldn't have believed it. Racism, anti-Semitism, starvation of children and, who would have believed that? At least I was convinced then, naively, that at least something happened in history that, because of myself, certain things cannot happen again.

Personally, as a student who loves words, who loves texts, I am concerned with finding something in the text from within.

Warmed-over loves and soups are generally not recommended.

You take a text, you explore it, you enter it with all your heart and all your mind.

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.