Quote collection
334 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The two important facts I should say, are emotion, and then words arising from emotion. I don't think you can write in an emotionless way. If you attempt it, the result is artificial. I don't like that kind of writing. I think that if a poem is really great, you should think of it as having written itself despite the author. It should flow."
"What a writer wants to do is not what he does."
"Time, which despoils castles, enriches verses."
"Emma dropped the paper. Her first impression was of a weak feeling in her stomach and in her knees; then of blind guilt, of unreality, of coldness, of fear; then she wished that it were already the next day. Immediately afterwards she realized that that wish was futile because the death of her father was the only thing that had happened in the world, and it would go on happening endlessly."
"Translations are a partial and precious documentation of the changes the text suffers."
"Fame is a form, perhaps the worst form, of incomprehension."
"The man who has learned that three plus one are four doesn't have to go through a proof of that assertion with coins, or dice, or chess pieces, or pencils. He knows it, and that's that. He cannot conceive a different sum. There are mathematicians who say that three plus one is a tautology for four, a different way of saying "four" ... If three plus one can be two, or fourteen, then reason is madness."
"Poetry springs from something deeper; it's beyond intelligence."
"It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha."
"A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art. One must accept it."
"Chang Tzu tells us of a persevering man who after three laborious years mastered the art of dragon-slaying. For the rest of his days, he had not a single opportunity to test his skills."
"When you come right down to it, opinions are the most superficial things about anyone"
"Happy are the beloved and the lovers and those who can live without love."
"The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it."
"One concept corrupts and confuses the others. I am not speaking of the Evil whose limited sphere is ethics; I am speaking of the infinite."
"We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors."
"A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated."
"In the critic's vocabulary, the word "precursor" is indispensable, but it should be cleansed of all connotations of polemic or rivalry. The fact is that every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future." -- Essay: "Kafka and his Precursors"
"He thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it."
"I have sometimes suspected that the only thing that holds no mystery is happiness, because it is its own justification."