In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

It's partly the fault of the institutions of education. But it's partly the decision to be relieved of responsibility. Literature is simply the most focused form of the demands on the evolution of the species. It imposes a certain responsibility, moral, ethical and esthetic responsibility, and the species simply doesn't want to oblige.

The moment that you place blame somewhere, you undermine your resolve to change anything.

I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.

Geography blended with time equals destiny.

If there is anything good about exile, it is that it teaches one humility. It accelerates one’s drift into isolation, an absolute perspective. Into the condition at which all one is left with is oneself and one’s language, with nobody or nothing in between. Exile brings you overnight where it would normally take a lifetime to go.