Naturally, everything depends on one's background books and on what one is looking for.

Whoever reflects on four things I would be better if he were never born: that which is above, that which is below, that which is before, that which is after.

Homer's work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that.

When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths of Homeric profundity. Two clichés make us laugh but a hundred clichés moves us because we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, celebrating a reunion. . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure, and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime.

If somebody writes a book and doesn't care for the survival of that book, he's an imbecile.

An idea you have might not be original. But by creating a novel out of that idea you can make it original.

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.