“A writer's vocation is a strange one, because it is a vocation that is exercised against the world, against the current, and that is why it is a form of rebellion.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”

“The only demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”