“My idea of literature, as I have often said, is that it should save lives. My idea of literature is that it once did save lives, and was of consequence in that way. I believe it can do so again. Wi...”

“What was boring was somehow more elegant, more perfect, for it was incontrovertible. The boring was everything that certainly was. The boring was everything that had stood the test of time. The bor...”

“Every treasure is guarded by dragons. That's how you can tell it's valuable.”

“When I was 14 or 15, our teacher introduced us to Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities.' It was just for entertainment - we read it aloud - and all of a sudden it became a treasure.”

“Happiness is your own treasure because it lies within you.”

“We sit for a few more moments, although there's really nothing left to say. This is new to me, too, an entire conversation that takes place in silence, because the heart has its own language. I wil...”

“I'm always amazed at anyone's interest in what I have to say.”

“The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.”

“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

“All established order forms a line of resistance against the threat of rupture and places its meager forces at the service of continuity. That everything should continue as usual is the bourgeois s...”

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”