In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice.

The most immoral and disgraceful and dangerous thing that anybody can do in the arts is knowingly to feed back to the public its own ignorance and cheap tastes.

They [the English] have a special word, "civil," for what is elsewhere merely ordinary politeness.

Keep going; never stop; sit tight; Read something luminous at night.

The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another.

In times of disorder and stress, the fanatics play a prominent role; in times of peace, the critics. Both are shot after the revolution.

The only thing that we can really make is our work, and deliberate work of the mind, imagination and hand, done, as Nietzsche said, ‘notwithstanding,’ in the long run remakes the world.