My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven't heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise.

There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body; with the second, they match each other like body and clothes.

A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.

Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.

A man's jealousy is a social institution; a woman's prostitution is an instinct.

In a well-run mental household there ought to be a thorough cleaning at the threshold of consciousness a few times a year.