Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.

Your masters at Oxford have taught you to idolize reason, drying up the prophetic capacities of your heart!

The good of a book lies in its being read.

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

Show not what has been done, but what can be. How beautiful the world would be if there were a procedure for moving through labyrinths.