“The book is like the wheel - once invented, it cannot be bettered.”

“Jedes Geschöpf der Welt ist uns gleichsam ein Buch und Gemälde und Spiegel. (Every creature of the world is to us at once a book and painting and mirror.)”

“recognize the evidence through which the world speaks to us like a great book...”

“Books always speak of other books.”

“Since I became a novelist I have discovered that I am biased. Either I think a new novel is worse than mine and I don’t like it, or I suspect it is better than my novels and I don’t like it.”

“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used "to tell" at all.”

“We live for books.”