Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order.

Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can’t I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I’d like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.

Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it.

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back.

What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

Every time one leaves anywhere, something precious, which ought not to be killed, is left to die.

In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more - you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging.