The notion of travelling to far places in order to study alien peoples and cultures, is unique to Western man; it springs from the predatory genius of the Greeks; no primitive peoples have ever come to study us. This is, on the one hand, a disinterested, intellectually inspired impulse. It is one of our glories. But it is, on the other, part and parcel of exploitation. [] The Western obsession with inquiry, with analysis, with the classification of all living forms, is itself a mode of subjugation, of psychological and technical mastery.

The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.

I have students who are now in chairs in five continents. They invite me to their inaugurals. A tremendous reward.

The immense majority of human biographies are a gray transit between domestic spasm and oblivion.

I owe everything to a system that made me learn by heart till I wept. As a result I have thousands of lines of poetry by heart. I owe everything to this.

The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.

The journalistic vision sharpens to the point of maximum impact every event, every individual and social configuration; but the honing is uniform.