But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.

People said that he was very nice, but I confess that his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkeys eating their own excrement turns some people’s stomachs. They might not mind so much if monkeys did not- so grotesquely- resemble human beings.

A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.

He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

Yr crown has been bought and paid for. All you have to do is put it on yr head