Anyone who still wants to experience fairytales these days can’t afford to dither when it comes to using their brains.

All still lifes are actually paintings of the world on the sixth day of creation, when God and the world were alone together, without man!

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.

The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again.

You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody's been living for them, not even for a single hour.

What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture.

[...] a number of flawed individuals can often add up to a brilliant social unit.