“Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.”

“In the Middle Ages, cathedrals and convents burned like tinder; imagining a medieval story without a fire is like imagining a World War II movie in the Pacific without a fighter plane shot down in flames.”

“The flame consists of a splendid clarity, of an unusual vigor, and od an ingenious ardor, but possesses the splendid clarity that it may illuminate and the ingenious ardor that it may burn.”

“A library's ideal function is to be a little bit like a bouquiniste's stall, a place for trouvailles.”

“After so many years even the fire of passion dies, and with it what was believed the light of the truth. Who of us is able to say now whether Hector or Achilles was right, Agamemnon or Priam, when they fought over the beauty of a woman who is now dust and ashes?”

“It takes a little time, but the pleasures of cooking begin before the pleasures of the palate, and preparing means anticipating ...”

“Yes, I know, it's not the truth, but in a great history little truths can be altered so that the greater truth emerges.”