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We read novels because we want to see the world through other experiences, other beings, other eyes, other cultures.

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A novelist is essentially a person who covers distance through his patience, slowly, like an ant. A novelist impresses us not by his demonic and roman...more

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Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.

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Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only t...more

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Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we're being heroic, it usually means we're about to kill each oth...more

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...in a brutal country like ours where human life is cheap, it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs, high ideals--only p...more

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There are two kinds of Communists: the arrogant ones, who enter the fray hoping to make men out of the people and bring progress to the nation; and th...more

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To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is fantasy, and how much is ...more

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Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra p...more