it is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come. ... Pour out the dull things on paper too-you can tear them up afterward-for only then do the bright ones come. If you hold back the dull things, you are certain to hold back what is clear and beautiful and true and lively.

... the great artists ... do not want security, egoistic or materialistic.

We are always afraid to start something that we want to make very good, true, and serious.

Try to discover your true, honest, untheoretical self.

I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.

The only good teachers for you are those friends who love you, who think you are interesting, or very important, or wonderfully funny; whose attitude is: "Tell me more. Tell me all you can. I want to understand more about everything you feel and know and all the changes inside and out of you. Let more come out." And if you have no such friend,--and you want to write,--well, then you must imagine one.

Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.