There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

My favorite mode of communication is in the world beyond: a dream, to see in a dream. My second favorite is correspondence.

Don't you know no one can escape the power of creatures reaching out with breath alone?

One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk.

What is this gypsy passion for separation, this readiness to rush off when we've just met? My head rests in my hands as I realize, looking into the night that no one turning over our letters has yet understood how completely and how deeply faithless we are, which is to say: how true we are to ourselves.

No one has ever stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

For the spell is older than experience. For the tale is older than the record.