It is the nature of those books we call classics to wait patiently on the shelf for us to grow into them.

We've lost more men to homosexuality than we ever did in two world wars.

Books go out into the world, travel mysteriously from hand to hand, and somehow find their way to the people who need them at the times when they need them ... Cosmic forces guide such passings-along.

I believe I belong to the last literary generation, the last generation, that is, for whom books are a religion.

Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.

Whenever I go anywhere but Italy for a vacation, I always feel vaguely disappointed, as if I have made a mistake.

We are finally driven to monogamy not by morality but by exhaustion.