It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Drunkenness is never anything but a substitute for happiness.

The color of truth is gray.

The true return to nature is the definitive return to the elements-death.

Profound optimism is always on the side of the tortured.

Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist's business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him.

The miser puts his gold pieces into a coffer; but as soon as the coffer is closed, it is as if it were empty.