Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently.

A head full of stars, just not in constellation yet.

People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation.

Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days

There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.

Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.

Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.