“All the information I have about myself is from forged documents.”

“I have no desires, save the desire to express myself in defiance of all the world’s muteness.”

“It is childish to study a work of fiction in order to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author.”

“Although I am capable, through long dabbling in blue magic, of imitating any prose in the world (but singularly enough not verse—I am a miserable rhymester), I do not consider myself a true artist, save in one matter: I can do what only a true artist can do—pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation, wean myself abruptly from the habit of things, see the web of the world, and the warp and the weft of that web.”

“I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.”

“No, I have as yet said nothing, or, rather, said only bookish words... and in the end the logical thing would be for me to give up and I would give up if I were labouring for a reader existing today, but as there is in the world not a single human who can speak my language; or, more simply, not a single human who can speak; or, even more simply, not a single human; I must think only of myself, of that force which urges me to express myself.”

“By God, I could make myself bring her that economically halved grapefruit, that sugarless breakfast.”