Present-day Spain translates as many books into Spanish, annually, as the Arab world has translated into Arabic in the past 1,100 years.

It's a young country and a German only feels comfortable being with the masses. They have very little talent at creating an inner life, privacy. And I think there must be something wrong.

Tremendous interest in the superficial is very characteristic of cultures in decline.

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

America still is the center of the world, and what happens in the American economy matters everywhere.

Addictions do come in handy sometimes: at least you have to get out of bed for them.

The egotism of people who are eminent without being in the least distinguished and somehow feeling that's their due - that seems to me to be a peculiarly English phenomenon.