“It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy.”

From life, from the apple cut by the flaming knife, what grain will be saved? My son, believe me, nothing remains, Only adult toil, the furrow of fate in the palm. Only toil, Nothing more.

When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.

Consciousness even in my sleep changes primary colors. The features of my face melt like a wax doll in the fire. And who can consent to see in the mirror the mere face of man?

On the day the world ends A bee circles a clover, A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

He returns years later, has no demands. He wants only one, most precious thing: To see, purely and simply, without name, Without expectations, fears, or hopes, At the edge where there is no I or not-I.

Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.

I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.

The soul exceeds its circumstances.

Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.

Irony is the glory of slaves.

The partition separating life from death is so tenuous. The unbelievable fragility of our organism suggests a vision on a screen: a kind of mist condenses itself into a human shape, lasts a moment and scatters.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.

I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.

Every object strives for its proper place. A book seeks to be near its truest admirer. Just as this helpless moth seeks to be near the candle that infatuates him.

When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced.

I prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.

There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you’re going to write before you die.

A good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit.

I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they’d once belonged to the sea.

Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.