And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?

He can't really love anyone, you know, and in the end such people are always alone, no matter how much other people once loved them.

In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.

If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.

...what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?

...History it seemed could be something entirely different a splash of blood whose agony didn't fade overnight or over centuries.

And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?