“Even bad books are books and therefore sacred.”

“But every time I shunned books, as scholars sometimes do, cursed them as verbal graveyards, and tried to make contact with the common folk, I ran up against the kids in our building and felt fortunate, after a few brushes with those little cannibals, to return to my reading in one piece.”

“When Satan's not in the mood, virtue triumphs. Hasn't even Satan a right not to be in the mood once in a while?”

“Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings.”

“He was taking advantage of the brief lull in the battle to take a little nap, for do not all men, even heroes, need a refreshing little nap now and then?”

“Because menare killing the foreststhe fairy tales are running away.The spindle doesn't knowwhom to prick,the little girl's handsthat her father has chopped off,haven't a single tree to catch hold of,the third wish remains unspoken.King Thrushbeard no longer owns one thing.Children can no longer get lost.The number seven means no more than exactly seven.Because men have killed the forests,the fairy tales are trotting off to the citiesand end badly.”

“We were convinced that she looked on with indifference if she noticed us at all. Today I know that everything watches, that nothing goes unseen, and that even wallpaper has a better memory than ours. It isn't God in His heaven that sees all. A kitchen chair, a coathanger, a half-filled ash tray, or the wooden replica of a woman named Niobe can perfectly well serve as an unforgetting witness to every one of our acts.”