Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars [translated from Trauerspiel, 1928].

Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.

The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.

Quotations in my work are like wayside robbers who leap out armed and relieve the stroller of his conviction.

There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.

The concept of progress must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe

All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.

If you accept that you can die at any time - then you might not be as ambitious as you are

Indifference and inaction must always pay a penalty.

predicament, n. The wage of consistency.

Wherever your gift is, that's where it's going to be your greatest challenge.

You cannot stop the human mind from working.

Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.

How you look at it is pretty much how you'll see it.

In order to be successful, I had to be willing to grow and change to become whoever I needed to be.

A poem is a window that hangs between two or more human beings who otherwise live in darkened rooms.

Sometimes you have to forget what's gone, appreciate what still remains, and look forward to what's coming next.