The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

I am unpacking my library. Yes I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order.

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

Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.

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

You could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interest, his habits.

Melancholy betrays the world for the sake of knowledge. But in its tenacious self-absorption it embraces dead objects in its contemplation, in order to redeem them