To acknowledge the presence of fear is to give birth to failure.

I am going to enjoy life in Paris I know. It is so human and there is something noble in the city... It is a real city, old and fine and life plays in it for everybody to see.

If you wish to live, you must first attend your own funeral.

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

I feel I must live alone, alone, alone - with artists only to touch the door. Every artist cuts off his ear and nails it on the outside of the door for the others to shout into.

there does seem to me something sad in life. It is hard to say what it is. I don't mean the sorrow that we all know, like illness and poverty and death. No, it is something different. It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one's breathing.

The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.