In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives he chooses one at the expense of others.

The mathematical sciences wield their particular language made of digits and signs, no less subtle than any other.

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

The task of art is to transform what is continuously happening to us, to transform all of these things into symbols, into music, into something which can last in man’s memory. That is our duty. If we don’t fulfill it, we feel unhappy.

A man sets himself the task of portraying the world. Shortly before he dies he discovers that this patient labyrinth of lines is a drawing of his own face.

The machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of men.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.