The bottomless bitter misery of childhood: how little even now it is understood. Probably no adult misery can be compared with a child's despair.

He was a sociologist; he had got into an intellectual muddle early on in life and never managed to get out.

They are universal places, like churches, hallowed meeting places of all mankind.

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

It was like hunting fish with an underwater gun, a sport which he had once been foolish enough to try. At one moment there is the fish - graceful, mysterious, desirable and free - and the next moment there is nothing but struggling and blood and confusion.

being homosexual doesn't determine a man's whole character any more than being heterosexual does.

Only the very greatest art invigorates without consoling.