“In my profession it isn’t a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money — it’s always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won’t be discovered for another hundred years? I’ll be dead myself then. Successful incompetents are what I need.”

“Nothing is what one thinks it is. Cloth is stone and circus is an art. There are no certainties.”

“Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.”

“I've never thought much of strictly organised and methodical study. You can't arrange a library in alphabetical order until you've collected one.”

“If flatness were funny, a dinner plate would be hilarious.”

“Reading is an intelligent way of not having to think.”

“Rumo!" said Rumo. "That's right!" Smyke exclaimed. "You Rumo, me Smyke." "You Rumo, me Smyke." Rumo repeated eagerly. "No, no." Smyke chuckled.”

“In my profession it isn’t a question of telling good literature from bad. Really good literature is seldom appreciated in its own day. The best authors die poor, the bad ones make money — it’s always been like that. What do I, an agent, get out of a literary genius who won’t be discovered for another hundred years? I’ll be dead myself then. Successful incompetents are what I need.”

“I could hear it from far away, that sound which only very big cities can produce: a sound consisting of all sounds rolled into one: the hum of voices and the cries of animals, bells ringing and the chink of coins, children's laughter and hammers beating metal, knives and forks clattering and a thousand doors slamming - the grandiose sound of life, of birth and death, itself.”

“Life is too precious to be left to chance”

“On horseback you feel as if you're moving in time to classical music a camel seems to progress to the beat of a drum played by a drunk. ”