A man who lives unrelated to other human beings dies. But a man who lives unrelated to himself also dies.

The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unnamed was my science and progress.

When I stand at the top of the Champs-Elysées, with its chestnut trees in flower, its undulations of shining cars, its white spaciousness, I feel as if I were biting into a utopian fruit, something velvety and lustrous and rich and vivid.

America hates the artist. It will not admit: the artist is my soul and I want to kill off my soul.

If one's conscious life is too rigid, too regimented, then the surface may crack at times, and we are unprepared for the strange emotions or sensations we experience.

I don't tell the truth any more to those who can't make use of it. I tell it mostly to myself, because it always changes me.

She had acquired some of his gypsy ways, some of his nonchalance, his bohemian indiscipline. She had swung with him into the disorders of strewn clothes, spilled cigarette ashes, slipping into bed all dressed, falling asleep thus, indolence, timelessness...A region of chaos and moonlight. She liked it there.