Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh.

Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves.

I saw that philosophy had no power to make my life more bearable. Thus I lost my belief in philosophy.

As the years pass, the number of those we can communicate with diminishes. When there is no longer anyone to talk to, at last we will be as we were before stooping to a name.

For a long time—always, in fact—I have known that life here on earth is not what I needed and that I wasn’t able to deal with it; for this reason and for this reason alone, I have acquired a touch of spiritual pride, so that my existence seems to me the degradation and the erosion of a psalm.

One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.

If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.