“There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?”

“You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing in.”

“Not only can you not step into the same river twice; it is not even the same you who can’t step into the same river twice. Everything modifies everything. There is no niche in the past waiting for him to come back and occupy it. Nature will tolerate a paradox, but she abhors a vacuum.”

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.”

“In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice.”

“Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.”

“I used to walk by the river
An old book under my arm
The river is the same as pain
It elapses mindlessly
And when will the week be over”

“Reading those books is all he does these days. I think he’s even read some of them. What kind of disturbed individual would read the same book twice, I ask you?”

“I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

“Time is a river, and books are boats.”