True literature should rouse the reader, unsettle him, change his view of the world, give him a resolute push over the cliff of self-knowledge

Time is a river sweeping away all that is born towards the darkest shore.

Somehow this literary genre, which most people condemned, acted as a sort of counterbalance to Charles's soul; it was the ballast that prevented him from lurching into the serious or melancholy, unlike Andrew, who had been unable to adopt his cousin's casual attitude to life, and to whom everything seemed so achingly profound, imbed with that absurd solemnity that the transience of of existence conferred upon even the smallest act.

I don't think traveling back in time on an empty stomach is a good idea.

...there are so many books left to read. For that reason alone it is worth going on living. Books make me happy, the help me escape from reality.

We are the authors of our own fate-we write it each day with every one of our actions.

Striving to achieve a dream is never a waste of time.