“to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing”

“When we discuss a novel it is only partially to hear another person's 'view', it is much more to find outwhat we ourselves think in order to possess the text more completely. Such a possession is then a composite one, it is the book itself and the articulated reaction to it. So vivid can be the latter that it is not uncommon to find that the pleasure survives the cause; some novels seem more enjoyable to talk about than to read.”

“Love one another, but let’s try not to possess one another.”

“We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.”

“Just like a sunbeam can't separate itself from the sun, and a wave can't separate itself from the ocean, we can't separate ourselves from one another. We are all part of a vast sea of love, one indivisible divine mind.”

“Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.”