The older I grow the more sharply I mistrust words. So few of them have any meaning left. It is impossible to write one sentence in which every word has the bareness and hardness of bones, the reality of the skeleton.

Lord, if there is a heartache Vienna cannot cure I hope never to feel it. I came home cured of everything except Vienna.

The young are so much more vulnerable than the old - the stuff is still warm and malleable, it takes impressions.

The past is able to close round certain moments, as if they were seeds, and deliver them again fresh and living in the present.

If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises.

Surprise will be my last emotion, not fear.

Fear is the deep motive of abstract art - fear of a repellent civilization which is dominated by the power of things. ... who can be surprised if, more sensitive than the others, the artist is terrified by the power things have acquired over us?