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.

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.

When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has”: “I have had, you see, to resort more and more to very small, almost invisible pleasures, little extras. You've no idea how great one becomes with these little details, it's incredible how one grows.

Great! I've written something stupid, but I haven't signed a contract with anyone to produce solely wise and perfect works. I gave vent to my stupidity...and here I am, reborn.

Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.

Any artist who respects himself ought to be, and in every sense of the term, an emigre.