Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other. It is usually both.

A man who wants the truth becomes a scientist; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity may become a writer; but what should a man do who wants something in between?

Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into a system.

True' and 'false' are the evasions of people who never want to arrive at a decision. Truth is something without end.

Writing [for the novelist] is not an activity, but a condition. That is why one simply can't resume the work when one has a job and a free half-day. Reading is the conveyance of this condition.

Every day there comes a moment when a person lays his hands in his lap and all his busyness collapses like ashes. The work accomplished is, from the soul's point of view, entirely imaginary.

It's not the genius who is 100 years ahead of his time but average man who is 100 years behind it.