Contemporary man is blind to the fact that, with all his rationality and efficiency, he is possessed by "powers" that are beyond his control. His gods and demons have not disappeared at all; they have merely got new names. They keep him on the run with restlessness, vague apprehensions, psychological complications, an insatiable need for pills, alcohol, tobacco, food - and, above all, a large array of neuroses

I am this bundle of what has been, and what has been accomplished.

We know that the wildest and most moving dramas are played not in the theatre but in the hearts of ordinary men and women.

There is rarely a creative man who does not have to pay a high price for the divine spark of his greatest gifts... the human element is frequently bled for the benefit of the creative element and to such an extent that it even brings out the bad qualities, as for instance, ruthless, naive egoism (so-called "auto-eroticism"), vanity, all kinds of vices-and all this in order to bring to the human I at least some life-strength, since otherwise it would perish of sheer inanition.

The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them.

We are not what happened to us, we are what we wish to become.