In every case the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers.

Every monument of civilization is a monument of barbarism

Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

The power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. Only the copied text thus commands the soul of him who is occupied with it, whereas the mere reader never discovers the new aspects of his inner self that are opened by the text, that road cut through the interior jungle forever closing behind it: because the reader follows the movement of his mind in the free flight of day-dreaming, whereas the copier submits it to command.

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

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

He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging... This confers the tone and bearing of genuine reminiscences. He must not be afraid to return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil.