The day of the absolute is over, and we're in for the strange gods once more.

If we had reverence for our life, our life would take at once religious form. But as it is, in our filthy irreverence, it remains a disgusting slough, where each one of us goes so thoroughly disguised in dirt that we are all alike and indistinguishab

The novel is the highest form of human expression so far attained. Why? Because it is so incapable of the absolute.

Sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them.

My soul is my great asset and my great misfortune.

The cosmos is a vast living body, of which we are still parts. The sun is a great heart whose tremors run through our smallest veins. The moon is a great nerve center from which we quiver forever. Who knows the power that Saturn has over us, or Venus? But it is a vital power, rippling exquisitely through us all the time.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.