Perhaps it's good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

Suddenly to realise that one is sitting, damned, among the other damned--it is a most disquieting experience; so disquieting thatmost of us react to it by immediately plunging more deeply into our particular damnation in the hope, generally realized, that we may be able, at least for a time, to stifle our revolutionary knowledge.

We live together, we act on, and react to one another; but always, and in all circumstances, we are by ourselves.

When an artist deserts to the side of the angels, it is the most odious of treasons.

In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

All our science is just a cookery book, with an orthodox theory of cooking that nobody's allowed to question, and a list of recipes that mustn't be added to except by special permission from the head cook.

It takes a certain amount of intelligence and imagination to realize the extraordinary queerness and mysteriousness of the world in which we live.