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

It is the task of the translator to release in his own language that pure language that is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.

In the world's structure dream loosens individuality like a bad tooth.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

Books, too, begin like the week – with a day of rest in memory of their creation. The preface is their Sunday.

Marx says that revolutions are the locomotives of world history. But the situation may be quite different. Perhaps revolutions are not the train ride, but the human race grabbing for the emergency brake.

No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.