All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks, in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.

The people we keep standing in the anteroom of our favor either start fermenting or turn sour.

Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy

Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.

Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly handshaking

The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.