An exotic birthplace on its own is not informative of anything.

Without translation, I would be limited to the borders of my own country. The translator is my most important ally. He introduces me to the world.

Thoughtful lightness can make frivolity seem dull and heavy.

A classic is a work which persists as a background noise even when a present that is totally incompatible with it holds sway.

Falsehood is never in words; it is in things.

If all material were transparent—the ground that supports us, the envelope that sheathes our body—everything would be seen not as a fluttering of impalpable wings but as an inferno of grinding and ingesting. Perhaps at this moment a god of the nether world situated in the center of the earth with his eye that can pierce granite is watching us from below, following the cycle of living and dying, the lacerated victims dissolving in the bellies of their devourers, until they, in their turn, are swallowed by another belly.