German "man of letters, aesthetician".
He is now considered to have been the most important German literary critic in the first half of the 20th century.
The book borrower . . . proves himself to be an inveterate collector of books not so much by the fervor with which he guards his borrowed treasures . . . as by his failure to read these books.
"Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector's passion borders on the chaos of memories."
Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away.
"Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven."
Genuine polemics approach a book as lovingly as a cannibal spices a baby.
