As for types like my own, obscurely motivated by the conviction that our existence was worthless if we didn't make a turning point of it, we were assigned to the humanities, to poetry, philosophy, painting - the nursery games of humankind, which had to be left behind when the age of science began. The humanities would be called upon to choose a wallpaper for the crypt, as the end drew near.

Death is the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all.

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.

Language is a spiritual mansion in which you live and nobody has the right to evict you.

Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.

I don't know exactly how it's done. I let it alone a good deal.

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.