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

“Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories.”

“Truth resists being projected into the realm of knowledge.”

“All efforts to make politics aesthetic culminate in one thing, war.”

“Death is the sanction of everything the story-teller can tell. He has borrowed his authority from death.”

“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.”

“Writing is a struggle against silence.”

“People who think that grammar is just a collection of rules and restrictions are wrong. If you get to like it, grammar reveals the hidden meaning of history, hides disorder and abandonment, links t...”

“When I am writing a novel, the setting, the characters, the action is clear in mind when I start -- so I believe. But it is only when these imaginings are written down, passing it seems almost phys...”