A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.

The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not say.

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication (or coded communication, if you like); it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself. Our dreams prove that to imagine--to dream about things that have not happened--is among mankind's deepest needs. Herein lies the danger. If dreams were not beautiful, they would be quickly forgotten.

And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

Pain doesn't listen to reason, it has it's own reason, which is not reasonable

Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, but if it isn't overdone (and if it's combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it.

Nothing is more repugnant to me than brotherly feelings grounded in the common baseness people see in one another.