We are a pluralist civilisation because we allow mosques to be built in our countries, and we are not going to stop simply because Christian missionaries are thrown into prison in Kabul. If we did so, we too would become Taliban.

Followers of the occult believe in only what they already know, and in those things that confirm what they have already learned.

Memory is a stopgap for humans, for whom time flies and what is passed is passed.

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.

Beauty has never been absolute and immutable but has taken on different aspects depending on the historical period and the country

After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?

Nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn.