In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future." -- Essay: "Kafka and his Precursors

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

We have stopped believing in progress. What progress that is !

There are those who seek the love of a woman to forget her, to not think about her.

The mathematical sciences wield their particular language made of digits and signs, no less subtle than any other.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

A labyrinth of symbols... An invisible labyrinth of time.