“I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both. ”

“...I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.”

“It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.”

“Some of life's moments mark a break in consciousness; others give rise to streams of scintillating, philosophical ideas or astonishing works of art; still others, to important meeting or profound personal upheavals.”

“There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.”

“Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.”

“How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.”