It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.

There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.

From my weakness, I drew strength that never left me.

When you reach my age, you realize you couldn't have done things very much better or much worse than you did them in the first place.

The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Emma dropped the paper. Her first impression was of a weak feeling in her stomach and in her knees; then of blind guilt, of unreality, of coldness, of fear; then she wished that it were already the next day. Immediately afterwards she realized that that wish was futile because the death of her father was the only thing that had happened in the world, and it would go on happening endlessly.