"What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don't want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don't want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you."
"The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark."
"The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down."
"Books and doors are the same thing. You open them, and you go through into another world."
"Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. Those who do not do it, think of it as a cousin of stamp collecting, a sister of the trophy cabinet, bastard of a sound bank account and a weak mind."
"Language is a finding-place not a hiding place."