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“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“...à propos des intellectuels justement... C'est facile de se foutre de leur gueule... Ouais, c'est vachement facile... Souvent, ils sont pas très musclés et en plus, ils n'aiment pas ça, se battre... Ça ne les excite pas plus que ça les bruits des bottes, les médailles et les grosses limousines, alors oui, c'est pas très dur... Il suffit de leur arracher leur livre des mains, leur guitare, leur crayon ou leur appareil photo et déjà ils ne sont plus bons à rien, ces empotés... D'ailleurs, les dictateurs, c'est souvent la première chose qu'ils font: casser les lunettes, brûler les livres ou interdire les concerts, ça leur coûte pas cher et ça peut leur éviter bien des contrariétés par la suite... Mais tu vois, si être intello ça veut dire aimer s'instruire, être curieux, attentif, admirer, s'émouvoir, essayer de comprendre comment tout ça tient debout et tenter de se coucher un peu moins con que la veille, alors oui, je le revendique totalement: non seulement je suis une intello, mais en plus je suis fière de l'être... Vachement fière, même...”
― Anna Gavalda

“I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Stories

“How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.”
― Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“She was a do-gooder, which means that all the ill she did, she did without realizing it.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Don’t walk in front of me�� I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me�� I may not lead
Walk beside me�� just be my friend”
― Albert Camus

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

“« Aceasta impacare cu Hitler tradeaza profunda perversiune morala, inerenta unei lumi intemeiate esential pe inexistenta intoarcerii, caci in aceasta lume totul e dinainte iertat si, in consecinta, totul e ingaduit cu cinism, » (p. 8)”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“Adesea se gindea la discursul rostit de Dubcek la posturile de radio dupa intoarcerea sa de la Moscova. Nu-si mai amintea nimic din spuselel lui, dar ii mai rasuna si acum in ureche vocea aceea tremuratoare. Se gindea la soarta lui : niste soldati straini l-au arestat in propria sa tara, pe el, seful unui stat suveran, l-au ridicat, l-au tinut sechestrat timp de patru zile, undeva in muntii Ucrainei, l-au facut sa inteleaga ca va fi impuscat, asa cum fusese impuscat, cu doisprezece ani in urma, precursorul sau maghiar Imre Nagy, apoi l-au transferat la Moscova, i s-a poruncit sa se imbaieze, sa se barbiereasca, sa se imbrace, sa-si puna cravata, l-au anuntat ca nu mai era destinat plutonului de executie, ca trebuia sa se considere in continuare seful statului, l-au asezat la o masa in fata cu Brejnev si l-au constrins sa negocieze.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Extremele marcheaza frontierele in spatele carora viata inceteaza, iar pasiunea extremismului, in arta si in politica, este dorinta camuflata de a muri.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Again and again as we discussed Lolita in that class, our discussions were colored by my students' hidden personal sorrows and joys. Like tearstains on a letter, these forays into the hidden and the personal shaded all our discussions of Nabokov. And more and more I thought of that butterfly; what linked us so closely was this perverse intimacy of victim and jailer.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“Fiul lui Stalin si-a jertfit viata pe altarul cacatului. A muri pentru cacat nu inseamna o moarte pagubita de semnificatii. Nemtii care si-au sacrificat viata pentru a extinde cit mai departe spre rasarit granitele imperiului lor, rusii care au murit pentru a face ca puterea lor sa ajunga cit mai departe spre apus, da, acestia au murit intr-adevar jertfindu-se pe altarul unei prostii, iar moartea lor e lipsita de sens si de valoare generala. In schimb, moartea odraslei lui Stalin a fost singura metafora in toiul universalei imbecilitati a razboiului mondial.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“�� kitschul este, in esenta, negatia absoluta a cacatului; atit in sensul propriu cit si in cel figurat al cuvintului; kitschul exclude din cimpul sau vizual tot ce-i esential inacceptabil in existenta umana.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications?”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

“The word 'education' comes from the root e from ex, out, and duco, I lead. It means a leading out. To me education is a leading out of what is already there in the pupil's soul. To Miss Mackay it is a putting in of something that is not there, and that is not what I call education, I call it intrusion, from the Latin root prefix in meaning in and the stem trudo, I thrust.”
― Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

“Do you shovel to survive, or survive to shovel?”
― Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

“Animal smell is beyond philosophy.”
― Kōbō Abe, The Woman in the Dunes

“Lumea ingerilor - mundus imaginalis - sta ca o oglinda intre lumea lui Dumnezeu si lumea oamenilor, aducindu-le pe amindoua intr-o nesperata contiguitate. Lumea ingerilor aduce in acelasi plan 'vazutele si nevazutele' (visibilia et invisibilia) distantele ireconciliabile, dihotomiile,”
― Andrei Plesu, Limba păsărilor

“Sa fie atunci numele primitive tot una cu cele date de zei, iar numele derivate opera oamenilor? Si sa fie hotarul dintre ele marcat de hotarul despartitor al Turnului Babel? (pp.19-20)”
― Andrei Plesu, Limba păsărilor

“Limbajul e zborul gindului creator asupra oglindirii sale create: duh plutind peste ape sau coborind, sub chipul columbei, asupra celui dispus sa-l primeasca. Cuvintele stau asupra lumii ca un popor de pasari care isi misca ritmic, fara odihna, aripile." (p. 48)”
― Andrei Plesu, Limba păsărilor

“-Tu crois que c'est comme tes mines de crayon ? Tu crois que ça s'use quand on s'en sert ?
- De quoi ?
-Les sentiments.”
― Anna Gavalda, Hunting and Gathering

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves