“Historians rewrite the truth every day. What interests us is the truth that gets the reader to reach for his wallet”

“People speak because they are afraid of silence. They speak mechanically whether aloud or to themselves. They are intoxicated by this vocal gruel that ensnares every object and every being. They talk about rain and fine weather; they talk about money, about love, about nothing. And even when they are talking about their most exalted love, they use words uttered a hundred times, threadbare phrases.”

“An exile's only country is his country's literature.”

“(...) the translator of prose is the slave of the author and the translator of poetry is his rival.”

“The though revives in him the oldest memory of his life. A child sees a door closing: without knowing who it is that has just left, he senses it is someone he loves with all his tiny, still mute being.”

“This sacrifice, which saved his life, reminded him again that the evil of this world could be put to rout by the will of a single human being.”

“Their own life together was like a subtle watercolor sketch, invisible to other people. They gave the world what it required of them and for the rest of the time were content to be forgotten.”