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.

In other words, although I don't like them, we do need noble-spirited souls.

To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.

A human best, which is very little. Its hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride.