“Your stay in the camp was merely an allegory, if you know that word. It was an allegory--speaking at the highest level--of how scandalously, how outrageously a meaning can take up residence in a system without becoming a term in it.”

“Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will.”

“Without living, how can you know? Without knowing, how can you speak?”

“A novel is not an allegory.... It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empathize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.”

“The words I AM are your sacred identification as God- your highest self. Take care how you use this terms because saying anything after I AM that's incongruent with God is really taking the Lord's name in vain!”

“It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely, without putting his whole self into it, quite unawares, presenting as if in allegory the basic themes and problems of his life.”