A work of art is by no means the property of its creator.

He was a man who had already died once.There was no reason why he should feel any sense of responsibility or attachment to the world. To him, it was nothing more than a sheet of newspaper covered in the scribblings of cockroaches.

In a big city, there are always fires somewhere. And there are always crimes somewhere, too. God, despairing of burning away crime with fire , perhaps distributed crime and fire in equal quantities. Thus crime is never consumed by fire, while innocence can be burned up. That's why insurance companies prosper. My guilt, however--in order that it might become a pure thing immune to fire, must not my innocence first pass through the fire?

Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.

The perfectly ordinary girl and the great philosopher are alike: for both, the smallest triviality can become the vision that wipes out the world.

Beautiful things always intimidate me [...] More than that, they drag me down. How can that be? Is it a superstition that beauty elevates mankind?

By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive the Truth. And first we must know that each of the petals has eighty-four thousand veins and that each vein gives eighty-four thousand lights.

I want to make a poem of my life.