Why change the world? Change worlds!

The most wonderful opportunity which life offers is to be human.

That we cannot rise equal to situations when we are in them — that is the tragedy of life.

Many is the mirage I chased. Always I was overreaching myself. The oftener I touched reality, the harder I bounced back to the world of illusion, which is the name for everyday life.

In the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related. Life moves on to death, and to deny one is to deny the other.

I had to learn to think, feel, and see in a totally new fashion, in an uneducated way, in my own way, which is the hardest thing in the world. I had to throw myself into the current, knowing that I would probably sink. The great majority of artists are throwing themselves in with life preservers around their necks, and more often than not it is the life preserver, which sinks them. Nobody can drown in the ocean of reality who voluntarily gives herself up to the experience. Whatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge.

The great work must inevitably be obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is important. For this only one good reader is necessary.