In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.

You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?

Democracy is an abuse of statistics.

The sea is an idiom I cannot decipher.

My father gave me free run of his library. When I think of my boyhood, I think in terms of the books I read.

A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource.