“I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.”

“Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.”

“Four billion people on this earthbut my imagination is still the same.It's bad with large numbers.It's still taken by particularity.It flits in the dark like a flashlight,illuminating only random faceswhile all the rest go by,never coming to mind and never really missed.”

“Nothing has changed. The body is susceptible to pain,It must eat and breath air and sleep,It has thin skin and blood right underneath,An adequate stock of teeth and nails,Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.In tortures all this is taken into account.Nothing has changed.The body shudders as it is shudderedBefore the founding of Rome and after,In the twentieth century before and after Christ.Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller,And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall.Nothing has changed.It’s just that there are more people,Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared,Real, imaginary, temporary, and none,But the howl with which the body responds to them,Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocenceAccording to the time-honored scale and tonality.Nothing has changed.Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances,Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull awayIts legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds.Nothing has changed. Except of course for the course of boundaries, The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers.Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,Alien to itself, elusiveAt times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,While the body is and is and isAnd has no place of its own.”

“I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.”

“A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it's not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off; and if only once to stumble upon a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another, mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes; and to keep on not knowing something important.”

“...They'd be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years. Not quite ready yet To become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside. There were signs and signals, Even if they couldn't read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood's thicket? There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side. One night, perhaps, the same dream, grown hazy by morning. Every beginning Is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.”