A man who loses his privacy loses everything. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster.

The longing for order is at the same time a longing for death, because life is an incessant disruption of order.

Sleep in my arms. Like a baby bird. Like a broom among brooms... in a broom closet. Like a tiny parrot. Like a whistle. Like a little song. A song sung by a forest... within a forest... a thousand years ago.

Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know the present? Is he in a position to make any judgment about it? Certainly not. For how can a person with no knowledge of the future understand the meaning of the present? If we do not know what future the present is leading us toward, how can we say whether this present is good or bad, whether it deserves our concurrence, or our suspicion, or our hatred?

Extremism means borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.

To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.