I am sure no other civilization, not even the Romans, has showed such a vast proportion of ignominious and degraded nudity, and ugly, squalid dirty sex. Because no other civilization has driven sex into the underworld, and nudity to the W.C.

When all comes to all, the most precious element in life is wonder. Love is a great emotion, and power is power. But both love and power are based on wonder.

An artist is only an ordinary man with a greater potentiality.

I am turned into a dream. I feel nothing, or I don't know what I feel. Yet it seems to me I am happy.

I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what luck would bring? I don't.

One's action ought to come out of an achieved stillness: not to be a mere rushing on.

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.