Poetry is what is gained in translation.

As long as the state permits itself to interfere in the affairs of literature, literature has the right to interfere with the affairs of state.

It's rather an exhilarating feeling. It's 6 or 7 when you get up and go out into the fields wearing your Wellingtons or high boots. You know that at this very hour half the nation does the same thing, which gives you, with the benefit of hindsight, a satisfaction in doing those things, too, a knowledge, a sense of the nation. I was a city boy until then.

The eye identifies itself not with the body it belongs to but with the object of its attention.

The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.

Perhaps the best proof of the Almighty's existence is that we never know when we are to die.

The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.