Like a Chinese box, the world of the novel contained smaller worlds, and inside those were yet smaller worlds. Together, these worlds made up a single universe, and the universe waited there in the book to be discovered by the reader.

In his own way, he's lived life with all the intensity he could muster.

The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake. If it’s a real dream, you cannot control it. When writing the book, you are awake; you can choose the time, the length, everything. I write for four or five hours in the morning and when the time comes, I stop. I can continue the next day. If it’s a real dream, you can’t do that.

Like flowers scattered in a storm, a man's life is a long farewell.

It depends on which reality you take and which reality I take.” (p. 318).

I can't understand nothingness. I can't understand it and I can't imagine it.

Not everything was lost in the flow of time