Some people read to confirm their own hopelessness. Others read to be rescued from it.

We see things the way we are, not the way they are.

I find that life, day by day, is composed of at least one joy, one problem and one sorrow. Then there are the smaller ingredients: you always learn something, whether useful or harmful - that is difficult to analyze until later; you always give something; you alwayou always grow a little in one direction or another.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.

That is my essential reason for writing, not for fame, not to be celebrated after death, but to heighten and create life all around me. I also write because when I am writing I reach the high moment of fusion sought by the mystics, the poets, the lovers, a sense of communion with the universe.

His life rushes onward in such torrential rhythm that...only angels and devils can catch the tempo of it.