The higher the artist, the fewer the gestures. The fewer the tools, the greater the imagination. The greater the will, the greater the secret failure.

The law is simple. Every experience is repeated or suffered till you experience it properly and fully the first time.

There is a kind of expressed love which is easy to subvert. When a figure is loved for their deeds, their conquests, their heroism, their goodness, their love of the people, these are easy enough to destroy... But there is a kind of love which is felt for apparently no reason... A love, inspired, it seems, by the gods, which it is impossible to fight, distort, destroy, or weaken. In fact, the attempts to destroy such loves only strengthen them. And to do nothing allows them to continue to grow at their natural pace, inexoribly, till this love becomes a wide and silent adoration.

A man must be able to hold his drink because drunkenness is sometimes necessary in this difficult life.

Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories

To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art: they

I lived rough, by my wits, was homeless, lived on the streets, lived on friends' floors, was happy, was miserable.