Love is an incurable disease. In love, there is permanent suffering. Those who love and those who are happy are not the same.

The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.

Only by declaring a book completely finished can one start to see how much remains to be done on it.

Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity - suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.

Our disrespect for thinking: someone sitting in a chair, gazing out of a window blankly, always described as 'doing nothing'.