Contemporary societies have lost the sense of the feast but have kept the obscure drive for it.

The belief that time is a linear, directed sequence running from A to B is a modern illusion. In fact, it can also go from B to A, the effect producing the cause.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

A library's ideal function is to be a little bit like a bouquiniste's stall, a place for trouvailles.

The Fundamental Principle that governs - or ought to govern -human affairs if we wish to avoid misunderstandings, conflicts, or pointless utopias, is negotiation.

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.

One of the problems I have always discussed is the refusal to distinguish between comment and fact. The newspaper wraps every fact into a comment. It is impossible to give mere fact without establishing point of view.