The main engagement of the writer is towards truthfulness; therefore he must keep his mind and his judgement free.

One knows less about one’s own destiny than about anything else on earth.

Every life is a tragedy, but far more the writer’s life, because the more he has to see, the more deeply he understands and feels about life, the less time he has to put it down.

The more the heart is nourished with happiness, the more it is insatiable.

Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?

The life of a writer is tragic: the more we advance, the farther there is to go and the more there is to say, the less time there is to say it.

it's a funny life. Either you don't make a red cent and you have all the time in the world, or else you get double the money and you don't have a moment to spend a penny of it.

Ideas often last but a day; feelings, dreams almost forever.

Curiosity ran unchecked through him, like the wind outside through the deserted streets, along the canal, around the little wooden houses, everywhere, as far as the mountain.

Of all things that can happen to us, triumph is the most difficult to endure when we are alone. Deprived of witnesses, it shrinks at once.