Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else

Even a poet cannot get everything right.

Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone.

There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus.

I have decided that the trouble with print is, it never changes its mind.

Infinite are the arguments of mages.

What good is power when you're too wise to use it?