Yet, even now, ever time (often) that I find that I don't understand something, then instinctively, I'm filled with the hope that perhaps this will be my moment again, perhaps once again I shall understand nothing, I shall grasp that other knowledge, found and lost in an instant.

Knowledge of the world means dissolving the solidity of the world.

My confidence in the future of literature consists in the knowledge that there are things that only literature can give us, by means specific to it.

Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do.

Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top.

Success consists in felicity of verbal expression, which every so often may result from a quick flash of inspiration but as a rule involves a patient search... for the sentence in which every word is unalterable.

Each new Clarice, compact as a living body with its smells and its breath, shows off, like a gem, what remains of the ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead.