In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

One day some as yet unborn scholar will recognize in the clock the machine that has tamed the wilds.

When we are stirred to lament the loss of the gods, it is more than likely the gods who are doing the stirring.

The most important of all rights is the right to life, and I cannot foresee a day when domesticated animals will be granted that right in law.

I am not the we of anyone

And anyway, I suspect he secretly liked it when a woman was cold and distant

The mode of consciousness of nonhuman species is quite different from human consciousness.