Much unhappiness comes from walking alone. When there are several, it's somewhat different. I must get into the habit of listening to others, for what the others say concerns me, too.

In the course of writing one historical book or another, it has happened that I could hardly restrain myself from simply copying entire documents. Indeed, I sometimes sank down among the documents and said to myself, I can't improve on these.

The cities are the principal home and seat of the human group. They are the coral colony for Man, the collective being.

One encounters very capable fathers abashed by their piano-playing daughters. Three measures of Schumann make them red with embarrassment.

Next-door a baker's apprentice with his wife, an employee in a printing-shop, she has inflammation of the ovaries. Wonder what those two get out of life? Well, first of all, they get each other, then last Sunday a vaudeville and a film, then this or that club meeting and a visit to his parents. Nothing else? Well now, don't drop dead, sir. Add to that nice weather, bad weather, country picnics, standing in front of the stove, eating breakfast and so on. And what more do you get, you, captain, general, jockey, whoever you are? Don't fool yourself.

Cultivate your Futurism. I'll cultivate my Döblinism.

No country is so peaceful as the one that leads into death. Life arches above one's head like a bridgespan, and below it flows the water, carries the boat, takes it further.