Earth and sea merged, the sea tossed itself in the air in a fantastic dance, into the shapes of men and horses and tattered banners. I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things.

There is nothing like being left alone again, to walk peacefully with oneself in the woods. To boil one's coffee and fill one's pipe, and to think idly and slowly as one does it.

In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.

Love is every bit as violent and dangerous as murder.

The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned.

A word can be transformed into a coulour, light, a smell; it is the writer's task to use it in such a way that it serves, never fails, can never be ignored.

But things worked out. Everything works out. Though sometimes they work out sideways.