The spirit becomes free only when it ceases to be a support.

It is only our conception of time that makes us call the Last Judgement by this name. It is, in fact, a kind of martial law.

Nothing is as deceptive as a photograph.

Everything is deception: seeking the minimum of illusion, keeping within the ordinary limitations, seeking the maximum. In the first case one cheats the Good, by trying to make it too easy for oneself to get it, and the Evil by imposing all too unfavorable conditions of warfare on it. In the second case one cheats the Good by keeping as aloof from it as possible, and the Evil by hoping to make it powerless through intensifying it to the utmost.

The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

Art is for the artist is only suffering through which he releases himself for further suffering.

My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else, my job will never take possession of me, it may, however, shatter me completely, and this is by no means a remote possibility.