Disgust at having to talk about oneself is what distinguishes novelistic talent from lyric talent.

Common European thought is the fruit of the immense toil of translators. Without translators, Europe would not exist; translators are more important than members of the European Parliament.

But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)

... characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.

Even in the game there lurks a lack of freedom; even in a game is a trap for the players.

He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it.