Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Gemeinsam aber ist allen Menschen, die des guten Willens sind, dieses: daß unsere Werke uns am Ende beschämen, daß wir immer wieder von vorn beginnen müssen, daß das Opfer immer neu gebracht werden muß.

I don’t write literature but simply confessions, just as a drowning man or a man dying of poisoning no longer worries about the state of his hair or the modulation of his voice, but instead simply lets out a scream.

Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature.

If my life were not a dangerous, painful experiment, if I did not constantly skirt the abyss and feel the void under my feet, my life would have no meaning and I would not have been able to write anything.