You may win your heart's desire, but in the end you're cheated of it by death.

Im merely a dreamer, and then a writer, and my happiest moments are when I'm a reader.

A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art. One must accept it.

I ask of any God, of any gods, that if they give immortality, I hope to be granted oblivion also.

On those remote pages [of 'a certain Chinese encyclopedia'] it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f ) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, (n) those that resemble flies from a distance.

A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships

Any life, however long and complicated it may be, actually consists of a single moment — the moment when a man knows forever more who he is.