Truth is so impossible. Something has to be done for it.

People who have power respond simply. They have no minds but their own.

My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.

It is not for us to hold ourselves above the position of grateful people. We have to be able to accept. Anything else shows an unwillingness to grant someone else the superior place.

As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life.

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.

What concerns anyone so much as the time he has to live?