The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.

Lully's machine, Mill's fear and Lasswitz's chaotic library can be the subject of jokes, but they exaggerate a propensity which is common: making metaphysics and the arts into a kind of play with combinations.

We accept reality so readily - perhaps because we sense that nothing is real.

I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done.

You will reply that reality hasn't the slightest need to be of interest. And I'll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber.

Fame is a form, perhaps the worst form, of incomprehension.

Unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential.