The self-surmounter can never put up with the man who has ceased to be dissatisfied with himself.

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

The real issue is not whether two and two make four or whether two and two make five, but whether life advances by men who love words or by men who love living.

Phenomenology is not a philosophy; it is a philosophical method, a tool. It is like an adjustable spanner that can be used for dismantling a refrigerator or a car, or used for hammering in nails, or even for knocking somebody out.

Isaiah Berlin once said that there are two kinds of writers, hedgehogs and foxes. He said the fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows just one thing. So Shakespeare is a typical fox; Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are typical hedgehogs. Now, I'm a typical hedgehog. I know just one thing, and I repeat it over and over again. I try to approach it from different angles to make it look different, but it's the same thing.

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've always believed that a writer has got to remain an outsider.