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

The Roseicrucians were everywhere, aided by the fact that they didn't exist.

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

Hypotyposis is the rhetorical effect by which words succeed in rendering a visual scene.

All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful.

I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.

A book is a fragile creature. It suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements, clumsy hands.