What a miserable thing life is: you're in clover; only the clover isn't good enough.

It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead.

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.

I'm in good form, taking no interest in things, neglecting clothes, meals, company, and feeling calm and stable as I write.

I don't like where I'm going and I don't like where I've been. Why am I in a hurry?

Don’t accept the habitual as a natural thing. In times of disorder, of organized confusion, of de-humanized humanity, nothing should seem natural. Nothing should seem impossible to change.

I was called up in the war and sent to a hospital. I dressed wounds, applied iodine, gave enemas, did blood transfusions. If the doctor ordered: "Brecht, amputate a leg!", I would reply, "Certainly, Your Excellency!", and cut off the leg. If I was told, "Perform a trepanning!" I opened the man's skull and messed about with his brains. I saw how they patched fellows up, so as to cart them back to the Front as quickly as they could.