The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

True translation is transparent: it does not obscure the original, does not stand in its light, but rather allows pure language, as if strengthened by its own medium, to shine even more fully on the original.

Allegories are, in the realm of thought, what ruins are in the realm of things.

Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.

Not to find one’s way around a city does not mean much. But to lose one’s way in a city, as one loses one’s way in a forest, requires some schooling.

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.

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.