L'éternité, c'est long ... surtout vers la fin. - Franz Kafka

"I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man."

"We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

"Writing is prayer."

"May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air."

"Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith."