You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.

Men all do about the same thing when they wake up.

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.