“Nor did I make any distinctions between great literature and any other kind. I just liked reading.”

“I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting.”

“We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsmen who cannot read at all, and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects.”

“Prior to any generalization about literature, literary texts have to be read, and the possibility of reading can never be taken for granted. It is an act of understanding that can never be observed, nor in any way prescribed or verified.”

“A great memory does not make a mind, any more than a dictionary is a piece of literature.”

“A book is a collaboration between the one who reads and what is read and, at its best, that coming together is a love story like any other.”