“It's a special form of scholarly neurosis,´ said Camel. `He's no longer able to distinguish between life and literature.´”

“Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age. They shouldn't have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.”

“Think of a ball of steel as large as the world, and a fly alighting on it once every million years. When the ball of steel is rubbed away by the friction, eternity will not even have begun.”

“To some people, there is no noise on earth as exciting as the sound of three or four big fan-jet engines rising in pitch, as the plane they are sitting in swivels at the end of the runway and, straining against its brakes, prepares for takeoff. The very danger in the situation is inseparable from the exhilaration it yields. You are strapped into your seat now, there is no way back, you have delivered yourself into the power of modern technology. You might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

“to read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another, from one action to another, from one level of a text to another. The text unveils itself before us, but never allows itself to be possessed; and instead of trying to possess it we should take pleasure in its teasing”

“It's a special form of scholarly neurosis,´ said Camel. `He's no longer able to distinguish between life and literature.´”