My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.

I don't pretend reality is the same for everyone.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

Of course I loved books more than people.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

But silence is not a natural environment for stories. They need words. Without them they grown pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you.

When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic, yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled.

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

What better place to kill time than a library?

I've nothing against people who love truth. Apart from the fact that they make dull companions.

Our clients' faces, with the customary outward paleness and inner glow of the book lover.

I've never really understood the criticism that climbing is inherently selfish, since it could equally be argued about virtually any other hobby or sport. Is gardening selfish?

It's better to waste money than time. You can always get more money.

Tell a thousand people to draft a letter, let them debate every phrase, and see how long it takes and what you get.

It's important to me that a man is good at taking care of people.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

The pain goes away, but your work always remains.

It's a real skill to be able to publicise yourself.

Love is the most powerful weapon on the face of the earth.

In spirituality the Americans are very inferior to us. But their society is very superior to ours.

Many people try to avoid pressure, yet the absence of any tension or pressure usually creates a sense of boredom and the lackluster experience of life that so many people complain about.