Nationalism will keep its venom until we succeed in creating an image of the nations of the whole world as so many provinces.

Speaking the truth, once you have started it, is too exhilarating to draw back.

... the truth is exactly that which can't be got into words. We are forced to lie, a little or, if we are inferior, much.

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?

One of the uncovenanted benefits of living for a long time is that, having so many more dead than living friends, death can appear as a step backwards into the joyous past.

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

Any marriage worth the name is no better than a series of beginnings - many of them abortive.