The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

We are not certain, we are never certain.

At that moment he knew what his mother was thinking, and that she loved him. But he knew, too, that to love someone means relatively little; or, rather, that love is never strong enough to find the words befitting it. Thus he and his mother would always love each other silently. And one day she--or he--would die, without ever, all their lives long, having gone farther than this by way of making their affection known.

Rule: Start by looking for what is valid in every man.

The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as clouds announce a storm.

It's better to bet on this life than on the next.

Every writer, big or small, needs to say or write that the genius is always hissed at by his contemporaries. Naturally, this is not true, it happens only occasionally and often by chance. But this need within the writer is enlightening.