“… if necessary, the books shall be divided as follows:you get the odd, I get the even pages;"the books" are understood to mean the ones we used to read aloudtogether, when we would interrupt our reading for a kiss,and would get back to the book after half an hour …”

“I have brushed my teeth.This day and I are even.”

“Let us touch each otherwhile we still have hands,palms, forearms, elbows . . .Let us love each other for misery,torture each other, torment,disfigure, maim,to remember better,to part with less pain.”

“Why is the word yes so brief?it should bethe longest,the hardest,so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,so that upon reflection you could stopin the middle of saying it.”

“Basked in the sun,listened to birds,licked off raindrops,and only in flightthe leaf saw the treeand graspedwhat it had been.”

“Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.”

“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.”