Jorge Luis Borges

"We have a very precise image - an image at times shameless - of what we have lost, but we are ignorant of what may follow or replace it."

"The image of the Lord has been replaced by a mirror."

"There is nothing but quotations left for us. Our language is a system of quotations."

"Reading . . . Is an activity subsequent to writing: more resigned, more civil, more intellectual."

"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others.I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite."

"Novels include padding; I think padding may be an essential part of the novel, for all I know."

"Many of the characters are fools and they're always playing tricks on meand treating me badly."