At college, and perhaps for a year afterwards, they had believed in literature, had believed in Beauty and in personal expression as an absolute end. When they lost this belief, they lost everything.

He read it for the same reason an animal tears at a wounded foot: to hurt the pain.

But whether he was happy or not was hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither.

Feeling is of the heart and nerves and the crudeness of its expression has nothing to do with its intensity.

Like a dead man, only friction could make him warm or violence make him mobile.

Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering.

Man spends a great deal of time making order out of chaos, yet insists that the emotions be disordered. I order my emotions: I am insane.