I am dead against art's being self-expression. I see an inherent failure in any story which fails to detach itself from the author-detach itself in the sense that a well-blown soap-bubble detaches itself from the bowl of the blower's pipe and spherically takes off into the air as a new, whole, pure, iridescent world. Whereas the ill-blown bubble, as children know, timidly adheres to the bowl's lip, then either bursts or sinks flatly back again.

Proust has pointed out that the predisposition to love creates its own objects; is this not also true of fear?

Nobody speaks the truth when there's something they must have.

Disappointment tears the bearable film off life.

Almost everyone admits to hunger during the Opera.... Hunger is so exalting that during a last act you practically levitate.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

The most steady, the most self-sufficient nature depends, more than it knows, on its few chosen stimuli.