Quotes by Erri De Luca

“On the brink of sleep I have a gloomy thought: that saving yourself is only pushing yourself even deeper into the trap rather than getting out. Dying is the only way out.”

“I take the book stopped at a fold, deliver myself to its pace, to the breathing of the other storyteller. If I am someone else, it's also because books move men more than journeys or tears.After ma...”

“Sometimes to take two steps in a row, one after the other, I need to make a contract with myself.”

“Do you really know yourself so well or are you making it up?' she asks. Some things I concoct, some I glean from my senses, most I thirst for.”

“I can hardly keep track of the things I don't know, but every now and then comes an ignorance that makes me nostalgic.”

“I grow fond of David, who lays a single stone before Goliath and a single book, the Psalms, in the mouth of the world.”

“I'm not that man anymore. No one can stay that way too long. That's why wars end and a later generation catches its breath looking forward and erasing what's behind.”

“A man dies and his skin loses heat like the sand on a summer evening. It makes you feel like warming him up.”

“You stay in the war because it would be shameful to stay out of it. An then grief seizes you and hold its grip till anger has turned you into a soldier.”

“This is what books should do: Carry a person and not be carried by him; take the day off his back, not add its own ounces of paper to his vertebrae.”

“I read used books because fingerprint-smudged and dog-eared pages are heavier on the eye. Because every book can belong to many lives. Books should be kept in public places and step out with passer...”

“I see the pain of miserly love in young people,' I say. 'You don't have that kind of melancholy on your face. But I'm careful not to step on your feet when I speak with you. It's not like dancing. ...”