The camera introduces us to unconscious optics as does psychoanalysis to unconscious impulses.

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.

Everything you can imagine is real.

If everyone could be a successful and rich author, there would be no point in working so hard. Where is the fun in that?

If talent without hard work was a dead-end street, talent with hard work could only be a highway.

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.

The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.

Those who work ought to live better than those that don't.

What is haunting is that people fallen off the train threaten those who remain on board.

Billie Holiday I never met, but I love her music.

Has the pope questioned the faith of any communist leaders? He spends a lot of time in communist countries.

Showing strength is different than showing muscle.