The study of sickness is the most poetic of the sciences.

We only really face up to ourselves when we are afraid.

Everyone, he went on, speaks a language he does not understand, but which now and then is understood by others. That is enough to permit one to exist and at least to be misunderstood.

The art we need is the art of bearing the unbearable.

The anger and the brutality against everything can readily from one hour to the next be transformed into its opposite.

I really only write about inner landscapes and most people don't see them, because they see practically nothing within, because they think that because it's inside, it's dark, and so they don't see anything. I don't think I've ever yet, in any of my books, described a landscape. There's really nothing of the kind in any of them. I only ever write concepts. And so I'm always referring to "mountains" or "a city" or "streets." But as to how they look: I've never produced a description of a landscape. That's never even interested me.

I avoid literature whenever possible, because whenever possible I avoid myself.