Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.

It's a shame that we have to choose between two such second-rate countries as the USSR and the USA.

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

There is an hour of the afternoon when the plain is on the verge of saying something. It never says, or perhaps it says it infinitely, or perhaps we do not understand it, or we understand it and it is untranslatable as music.

We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.

Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.

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.