To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery --even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness --is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself. Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can be.

Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.

Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.

What one hides is worth neither more nor less than what one finds. And what one hides from oneself is worth neither more nor less than what one allows others to find.

May night continue to fall upon the orchestra

Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything.

Every time you date someone with an issue that you have to work to ignore, you're settling.