Love, friendship and respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.

[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.

People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.

Only during hard times do people come to understand how difficult it is to be master of their feelings and thoughts.

I don't like being successful; the subjects which sit in my head are annoyed and jealous of what has already been written.

Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it—just as though one were in a madhouse or prison.

Those who come a hundred or two hundred years after us will despise us for having lived our lives so stupidly and tastelessly. Perhaps they'll find a means to be happy.