In the sort of screen dappled with different states of mind which my consciousness would simultaneously unfold while I read, and which ranged from the aspirations hidden deepest within me to the completely exterior vision of the horizon which I had, at the bottom of the garden, before my eyes, what was first in me, innermost, the constantly moving handle that controlled the rest, was my belief in the philosophical richness and beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate them for myself, whatever that book might be.

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.

Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.

We live not alone but chained to a creature of a different kingdom: our body.

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.

To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare to fail... failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion

Now are the woods all black, But still the sky is blue.