The true call of the desert, of the mountains, or the sea, is their silence - free of the networks of dead speech.

What I find trying in a country which you do not understand and where you cannot speak, is that you can never be yourself.

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure.

The monstrosity of bureaucracy, I thought: always the pint-pot judging the gallon, the scribe's, the door-keeper's world. Always the stupidity of people who feel certain about things they never try to find out. A world that educates people to be ignorant - that is what this world of ours is.

The greatest of mythologies divided its gods into creators, preservers and destroyers. Tidiness obviously belongs to the second category, which mitigates the terrific impact of the other two.

Who dares to be intellectual in the presence of death?

Things good in themselves ... perfectly valid in the integrity of their origins, become fetters if they cannot alter.