But what does it mean, the plague? It's life, that's all.

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.

To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge.

In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips.

At times I feel myself overtaken by an immense tenderness for these people around me who live in the same century.

...he said firmly, "God can help you. All the men I’ve seen in your position turned to Him in their time of trouble." "Obviously," I replied, "they were at liberty to do so, if they felt like it." I, however, didn’t want to be helped, and I hadn’t time to work up interest for something that didn’t interest me.

Instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not, we have to live and let live in order to create what we are.