A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated.

Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers.

I think of reading a book as no less an experience than travelling or falling in love.

I, who have been so many men in vain, want to be one man, myself alone. From out of a whirlwind the voice of God replied: I am not, either. I dreamed the world the way you dreamed your work, my Shakespeare: one of the forms of my dream was you, who, like me, are many and one.

Lully's machine, Mill's fear and Lasswitz's chaotic library can be the subject of jokes, but they exaggerate a propensity which is common: making metaphysics and the arts into a kind of play with combinations.

Your unforgivable sins do not allow you to see my splendor.

To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.