In the world of highways, a beautiful landscape means: an island of beauty connected by a long line with other islands of beauty.

Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

Our dreams prove that to imagine - to dream about things that have not happened - is among mankind's deepest needs.

High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor . . .

The beauty of New York is unintentional; it arose independent of human design, like a stalagmite cavern.

The novel is not the author's confession; it is an investigation of human life in the trap the world has become