Perhaps I am not as wise as I like to think I am.

He had prepared his death much earlier, in his imagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he, was planning the reality of that death.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

"You cannot believe what you are saying." "Well, no. Hardly ever. But the philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal nymph, only to plumb with his words the depths of passion. The philosopher tests the coldness of his gaze, to see how far he can undermine the fortress of bigotry."

Socrates ... did not write. It seems academically obvious that he perished because he did not publish!

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

We live for books.