When something is bothering me, I seek refuge. No need to travel far; a trip to the realm of literary memory will suffice. For where can one find more noble distraction, more entertaining company, more delightful enchantment than in literature?

So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I'd better not miss it, because once you're dead, it's too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

Talent consists not in inventing shapes but in causing those that were invisible to emerge.

As always, I am saved by the inability of living creatures to believe anything that might cause the walls of their little mental assumptions to crumble.

'Life has meaning and we grown-ups know what it is' is the universal lie that everyone is supposed to believe. Once you become an adult and you realize that's not true, it's too late.

As a child I often wondered whether I would be allowed to live such moments- to inhabit the slow, majestic ballet of the snowflakes, to be released at last from the dreary frenzy of time. Is that what it feels to be naked? All one's clothes are gone, yet one's mind is overladen with finery.

To beauty, all is forgiven, even vulgarity. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things.