The learning we received only tended to obscure our vision. From the day we went to school we learned nothing; on the contrary, we were made obtuse, we were wrapped in a fog of words and abstractions.

I read to be taken out of myself, to become ecstatic.

Your whole past is like a long sleep which would have been forgotten had there been no memory, but remembrance is there in the blood and the blood is like an ocean in which everything is washed away but that which is new and more substantial even than life - reality.

I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object.

There is nothing strange about fear: no matter in what guise it presents itself it is something with which we are all so familiar that when a man appears who is without it we are at once enslaved by him.

A man of good will with a little effort and belief in his own powers can enjoy a deep, tranquil, rich life - provided he go his own way.... To live one's own life is still the best way of life, always was and always will be.

I'd rather sit down and write a letter than call someone up. I hate the telephone.