“La mauvaise musique est jouée tous les jours, la bonne ignorée.”

“Musique, nourriture et femmes. Tels sont les grands plaisirs de la vie. Les plaisirs durables. Vous apprendrez cela, jeune moine.- J'ajouterais les livres, fit Claude, quelque peu embarassé. Vous savez, de bons livres.- Bien entendu! Vous êtes un amateur de livres! C'est parfait.- Ils ne vous laissent pas tomber.”

“I could not resist the clarity of the world in books, the incredibly satisfying way in which life became weighty and accessible. Books were reality. I hadn't made up my own mind about my own life, a vague, dreamy affair, amorphous and dimly perceived, without beginning or end.”

“The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain — to the end of the story — and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you're going to have a very irritated reader on your hands.”

“La connaissance est neutre , mais elle peut être utilisée avec de bonnes ou de mauvaises intentions.”

“La única palabra que describe la bondad es bondad, y no es bastante.”

“La chair, hélas, est triste, et j'ai lu tous les livres.”