What is essential is whether it is perceived and not whether it exists. To exist and yet not to be perceived is the same as not exist.

Dreams are more real than reality itself, they're closer to the self.

Writing eases my suffering . . . writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.

Walk where your heart leads you, there are no restrictions and no burdens.

If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.

Observing humans and observing oneself yields a clear-minded starting point for literature.

Loneliness is a prerequisite for freedom. Freedom depends on the ability to reflect, and reflection can only begin when one is alone.

It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth.

Love is so holy, so confusing. It makes a man anxious, tormented. Love, how can I define it?

I don't want to be a strong hero who can save society. I just want to save myself.

For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in your own family could turn you in.

Where words fail, music speaks.

Music is the art of thinking with sounds.

Blood cannot be without dancing. There is no dancing without blood.

I think education has a bigger impact on the lives of people than absolutely anything else.

If human values were relative, all laws-whether those based on revealed religions or those devised by man-would become meaningless.

Maybe all you can do, when your world is burning, is hold on to the thing you love the most.

Only the footsteps of the blind are short, but their thoughts are long.

The strong live off the weak and the clever live off the strong.

All that I have achieved are these dreams locked in silver.

Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.