Only in the books written in earlier times did she sometimes think she found some faint idea of what it might be like to be alive.

It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.

We take almost all the decisive steps in our lives as a result of slight inner adjustments of which we are barely conscious.

By all means be experimental, but let the reader be part of the experiment

I wonder now whether inner coldness and desolation may not be the pre-condition for making the world believe, by a kind of fraudulent showmanship, that one's own wretched heart is still aglow.

We learn from history as much as a rabbit learns from an experiment that's performed upon it.

We all have appointments with the past.

I believe that the black-and-white photograph, or rather the gray zones in the black-and-white photograph, stand for this territory that is located between life and death.

At the time I could no more believe my eyes than now I can trust my memory.

Tiny details imperceptible to us decide everything!

The moral backbone of literature is about that whole question of memory. To my mind it seems clear that those who have no memory have the much greater chance to lead happy lives.

When you know that everything matters—that every move counts as much as any other—you will begin living a life of permanent purpose.

If you keep shooting for what you love to do, then it can’t turn out wrong. Get into the habit of going for what you want. Figure out what makes you happy and fulfilled and then do those things!

Every year in China, Internet executives are officially rewarded for their 'patriotism.'

I want to have tampons as merch that say ‘Periods are punk.'

I have a Guinness Book of World Records entry as the most-watched person on television; now I have a new entry as the only man who has a crab named after him.

By the time you're 30 years old, you can be on a nowhere street, if you're not careful.

Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny.

Gardening is a humbling experience.

Had I just begged for an audience with Death?