I just enjoy translating, it's like opening one's mouth and hearing someone else's voice emerge.

It's easier to sell junk when you're known than works of genius when you're unknown.

The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick, or a self-destroying or ever murderous obsession.

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

for most of us the space between 'dreaming on things to come' and 'it is too late, it is all over' is too tiny to enter.

Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.