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

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.

When a language dies, a way of understanding the world dies with it, a way of looking at the world.

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

If there is a chronic infirmity by which every teacher ought to be afflicted, it is, indeed, hope.

I find so much writing colourless, small in its means, unwilling to take stylistic risks. Often it goes wrong; I am not the one to judge. Sometimes, I hope, it goes right.

The age of the book is almost gone.