A mistake which is commonly made about neurotics is to suppose that they are interesting. It is not interesting to be always unhappy, engrossed with oneself, malignant and ungrateful, and never quite in touch with reality.

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Civilization is an active deposit which is formed by the combustion of the Present with the Past. Neither in countries without a Present nor in those without a Past is it to be discovered.

Only by avoiding the beginning of things can we escape their end.

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.

In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?

Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.