When we realize that words can destroy something good, wonderful, and dear, and that by keeping silent we can avoid causing the least damage or harm, it’s easy to stay silent.

To the question: How do the authors of sketches, stories and novels get along in life, the following answer can or must be given: They are stragglers and they are down at heel.

Listening to music, I always have exactly the same feeling: something’s missing. Never will I learn the cause of this gentle sadness, never will I wish to investigate it.

The novel I am constantly writing is always the same one, and it might be described as a variously sliced-up or torn-apart book of myself.

I don't want a future, I want a present. To me this appears of greater value. You have a future only when you have no present, and when you have a present, you forget to even think about the future.

I'd like to die listening to a piece of music. I imagine this as so easy, so natural, but naturally it's quite impossible. Notes stab too softly. The wounds they leave behind may smart, but they don't fester. Melancholy and pain trickle out instead of blood. When the notes cease, all is peaceful within me again.

When we realize that words can destroy something good, wonderful, and dear, and that by keeping silent we can avoid causing the least damage or harm, it’s easy to stay silent.