“Their books are also different. Works of fiction contain a single plot, with all its imaginable permutations. Those of a philosophical nature invariably include both the thesis and the antithesis, the rigorous pro and con of a doctrine. A book which does not contain its counterbook is considered incomplete.”

“A book no more contains reality than a clock contains time. A book may measure so-called reality as a clock measures so-called time; a book may create an illusion of reality as a clock creates an illusion of time; a book may be real, just as a clock is real (both more real, perhaps, than those ideas to which they allude); but let's not kid ourselves - all a clock contains is wheels and springs and all a book contains is sentences.”

“Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.”

“the beauty of nature appears only as a reflectin of the beauty,that belongs to spirit, as an imperfect incomplete mode [of beauty],a mode which in its substance is contained in the spirit itself"*hegel”

“A religion is not contained in a single book; there's something religious in almost any book.”

“Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!”