“what a rich book might be made about buds and, perhaps, sprouts!”

“What a big book, captain, might be made with all that is known!""And what a much bigger book still with all that is not known!”

“We keep quiet about what we read. Our enjoyment of a book remains a jealously guarded secret. Perhaps because there`s no need to talk, or because it takes time to distill what we've read before we can say anything. Silence is our guarantee of intimacy. We might have finished reading but we`re still livingthe book.”

“Perhaps this is what it was all about. Leaning on God when life made no sense, as well as when the answers seem clear.”

“And now all the others are saying, "What about Us?" So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.”

“The gods weave misfortunes for men, so that the generations to come will have something to sing about.” Mallarmé repeats, less beautifully, what Homer said; “tout aboutit en un livre,” everything ends up in a book. The Greeks speak of generations that will sing; Mallarmé speaks of an object, of a thing among things, a book. But the idea is the same; the idea that we are made for art, we are made for memory, we are made for poetry, or perhaps we are made for oblivion. But something remains, and that something is history or poetry, which are not essentially different.”