"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."
"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self."
"Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled with faith."
"He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived."
"We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes."
"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."