Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable.

If we understood the enigmas of life there would be no need for art.

Integrity has no need of rules.

What is a firm hand to me, of what use to me is this astonishing power if I cannot change the order of things, if I cannot make the sun set in the east, that suffering diminish and that beings no longer die?

Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals.

No one who lives in the sunlight of gratitude that things aren't worse makes a failure of his or her life.

One cannot be a part-time nihilist.