The autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours. I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn't crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce.

Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.

The artist usually sets out -- or used to -- to point a moral and adorn a tale. The tale, however, points the other way, as a rule. Two blankly opposing morals, the artist's and the tale's. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper functions of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

In America the chief accusation seems to be one of "Eroticism." This is odd, rather puzzling to my mind. Which Eros? Eros of the jaunty "amours," or Eros of the sacred mysteries? And if the latter, why accuse, why not respect, even venerate?

I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies - thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.

And every true artist is the salvation of every other. But only artists produce for each other the world that is fit to live in.

My soul is my great asset and my great misfortune.