Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom.

I could have protested of course, who says I couldn't--I could have risen to my feet at any moment, walked up to them, and--no matter how difficult it would have been--made it abundantly clear that I was not seventeen but thirty. I could have--yet I couldn't because I didn't want to, the only thing I wanted was to prove that I was not an old-fashioned boy!

It is in the prime of youth that man sinks into empty phrases and grimaces. It's in this smithy that our maturity is forged.

Against the background of general freakishness the case of my particular freakishness was lost.

I didn't go to the lectures. My valet, who was more distinguished than I, went instead.

Man does not fear death, only the suffering.

To me, art almost always speaks more forcefully when it appears in an imperfect, accidental, and fragmentary way, somehow just signaling its presence, allowing one to feel it through the ineptitude of the interpretation. I prefer the Chopin that reaches me in the street from an open window to the Chopin served in great style from the concert stage.