. . . The books we need are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of someone we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation-a book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us.

One has just been sent out as a biblical dove, has found nothing green, and slips back into the darkness of the Ark

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate... but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

You are so vulnerably haunting. Your eeriness is terrifyingly irresistible.

From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.