To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious when they begin, or try something new. Even Matisse painted some of his Fauvist pictures in anxiety. Maybe that helped him to simplify. Character, discipline, negative capability count. Write, complete, revise. If it doesn't work, begin something else.

I am somewhat of a meliorist. That is to say, I act as an optimist because I find I cannot act at all, as a pessimist. One often feels helpless in the face of the confusion of these times, such a mass of apparently uncontrollable events and experiences to live through, attempt to understand, and if at all possible, give order to; but one must not withdraw from the task if he has some small things to offer - he does so at the risk of diminishing his humanity.

We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.

We're persecuted in the most civilized languages.

Charity you can give even when you haven't got.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

Politics isn't in my nature.