Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.

seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space

Each sort of cheese reveals a pasture of a different green, under a different sky.

Every new book I read comes to be a part of that overall and unitary book that is the sum of my readings...if you need little to set the imagination going, I require even less: the promise of reading is enough.

every choice has its obverse, that is to say a renunciation, and so there is no difference between the act of choosing and the act of renouncing

It is within you that the ghosts acquire voices.

When I'm writing a book I prefer not to speak about it, because only when the book is finished can I try to understand what I've really done and to compare my intentions with the result.