You know that the best you can expect is to avoid the worst.

Your first book is the only one that matters. Perhaps a writer should write only that one. That is the one moment when you make the big leap; the opportunity to express yourself is offered that once, and you untie the knot within you then or never again.

In general confusion youth recognizes itself and rejoices.

For those who pass it without entering, the city is one thing; it is another for those who are trapped by it and never leave. There is the city where you arrive for the first time; and there is another city which you leave never to return. Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene.

Nobody looks at the moon in the afternoon, and this is the moment when it would most require our attention, since its existence is still in doubt.

Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond.

In love, as in gluttony, pleasure is a matter of the utmost precision.