All disgust is originally disgust at touching.

We collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector.

To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.

Let no thought pass incognito, and keep your notebook as strictly as the authorities keep their register of aliens.

The destructive character knows only one watchword: make room. And only one activity: clearing away. The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates, because it clears away the traces of our own age; it cheers, because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed a rooting out, of his own condition.

How many cities have revealed themselves to me in the marches I undertook in the pursuit of books!

Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.