If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

Despite my being an old gypsy there is a tendency to respectability inherent in old age.

There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity and nuclear power: the will.

Let me tell you what I look like: pale face, long hair, and a tiny start of a paunch. In addition, an awkward gait, and a cigar in the mouth and a pen in pocket or hand.

Just as with the man in the fairy tale who turned whatever he touched into gold, with me everything is turned into newspaper clamor.

Never lose a holy curiosity.