Where man had been, in every place he left, garbage remained. Even in his pursuit of the ultimate truth and quest for his God, he produced garbage. By his garbage, which lay stratum upon stratum, he could always - one had only to dig - be known. For more long-lived than man is his refuse. Garbage alone lives after him.

The patience of poverty. In rice fields, backs bent forever. Amazing, man outoxens the oxen and still smiles. The mystery of India, say Indologists.

Art is so wonderfully irrational, exuberantly pointless, but necessary all the same. Pointless and yet necessary, that's hard for a puritan to understand.

Writers know that sometimes things are there in the drawer for decades before they finally come out and you are capable of writing about them.

There must be reasons why we men are so hipped on breasts as if we'd all been weaned too soon.

My relationship with Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm reaches far back into my childhood. I grew up with Grimm's fairy tales. I even saw a theater production of 'Tom Thumb' during Advent at the State Theater in Danzig, which my mother took me to see.

And when the sun goes down and the mood comes upon me, I'll watch the play of the colors on the water, yield to the fleetly dissolving images, and turn into pure feeling, all soft and nice.