In fact I'm in too much of a mental muddle to know where I am - an idealist or not. I'm a mere man of letters, and I do what I can with those subjects.

Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.

Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art.

I believe books will never disappear. It is impossible for it to happen. Of all man's diverse tools, undoubtedly the most astounding are his books... If books were to disappear, history would disappear. So would man.

We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.

Reality favors symmetry.

Any time something is written against me, I not only share the sentiment but feel I could do the job far better myself. Perhaps I should advise would-be enemies to send me their grievances beforehand, with full assurance that they will receive my every aid and support. I have even secretly longed to write, under a pen name, a merciless tirade against myself.