A writer needs loneliness, and he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and also unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the universe. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer - to be living a kind of double life.

A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

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

The future is as irrevocable as an inflexible yesterday.

If space is infinite, we may be at any point in space. If time is infinite, we may be at any point in time.

Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.

Kafka had the sense of guilt. I don't think I have because I don't believe in free will. Because what I have done has been done, well, for me or through me. But I haven't done it really. But I don't believe in free will, I can't feel guilty.