The mystical impulse in men is somehow a desire to possess the universe. In women, it's a desire to be possessed.

The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking 'pragmatic' decisions.

The outsider is not sure who he is. He has found an “I”, but it is not his true “I”.’ His main business is to find his way back to himself.

The exploration of oneself is usually also an exploration of the world at large, of other writers, a process of comparison with oneself with others, discoveries of kinships, gradual illumination of one's own potentialities.

Being very famous is not the fun it sounds. It merely means you're being chased by a lot of people and you lose your privacy.

I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.

When I open my eyes in the morning, I am not confronted by a world, but by a million possible worlds.