We live for books. A sweet mission in this world dominated by disorder and decay.

There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list.

You are always born under the wrong sign, and to live in this world properly you have to rewrite your own horoscope day by day.

In the construction of Immortal Fame you need first of all a cosmic shamelessness.

A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.

I've always said that I learned the English I know through two sources -- Marvel Comics and Finnegans Wake.

but I had also learned that freedom of speech means freedom from rhetoric.