The art of splitting hairs four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless.

Deciding what is being talked about is a kind of interpretive bet.

The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come.

But the purpose of a story is to teach and to please at once, and what it teaches is how to recognize the snares of the world.

Not bad, not bad at all," Diotallevi said. "To arrive at the truth through the painstaking reconstruction of a false text.

I felt no passion, no jealousy, no nostalgia. I was hollow, clear-headed, clean, and as emotionless as an aluminum pot.

When one starts writing a book, especially a novel, even the humblest person in the world hopes to become Homer.