It is remarkable how a man cannot summarize his thoughts in even the most general sort of way without betraying himself completely, without putting his whole self into it, quite unawares, presenting as if in allegory the basic themes and problems of his life.

Is not life in itself a thing of goodness, irrespective of whether the course it takes for us can be called a 'happy' one?

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.

Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.

Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.

What pleases the public is lively and vivid delineation which makes no demands on the intellect; but passionate and absolutist youth can only be enthralled by a problem.