it is necessary that we should all have a little of the will to die, because otherwise we would find the performance of our biological duty of death too difficult.

The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.

The aged are terrible - mere heaps of cinders on the grass from which none can tell how tall the flames once were or what company gathered round them.

Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.