To say good-bye is to deny separation; it is to say Today we play at going our own ways, but we'll see each other tomorrow. Men invented farewells because they somehow knew themselves to be immortal, even while seeing themselves as contingent and ephemeral.

Writing is only a guided dream.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

Time can't be measured in days the way money is measured in pesos and centavos, because all pesos are equal, while every day, perhaps every hour, is different.

Leaving behind the babble of the plaza, I enter the Library. I feel, almost physically, the gravitation of the books, the enveloping serenity of order, time magically dessicated and preserved.

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

The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men.