The good tidings which the historian of the past brings with throbbing heart may be lost in a void the very moment he opens his mouth.

Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas.

Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].

To perceive the aura of an object we look at means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.

Gifts must affect the receiver to the point of shock.

Less and less frequently do we encounter people with the ability to tell a tale properly. More and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to hear a story is expressed. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange our experiences...Experience has fallen in value. And it looks as if it is continuing to fall into bottomlessness.

The fairy tale, which to this day is the first tutor of children because it was once the first tutor of mankind, secretly lives on in the story. The first true storyteller is, and will continue to be, the teller of fairy tales. Whenever good counsel was at a premium, the fairy tale had it, and where the need was greatest, its aid was nearest. This need was created by myth. The fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake off the nightmare which myth had placed upon its chest.