Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one's own self.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
I am free and that is why I am lost.
Paths are made by walking.
My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication – it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness – it is all that I have – and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well.
Most men are not wicked. They are sleepwalkers, not evil evildoers.
The truth is always an abyss. One must – as in a swimming pool – dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again – laughing and fighting for breath – to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.
There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
Life’s splendor forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.
Evil is whatever distracts.
Writing is prayer.
You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart; imagine my heartbeat when you are in this state.
Anything that has real and lasting value is always a gift from within.
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
German is my mother tongue and as such more natural to me, but I consider Czech much more affectionate, which is why your letter removes several uncertainties; I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so resolute, it’s almost like a meeting.
Evil does not exist; once you have crossed the threshold, all is good. Once in another world, you must hold your tongue.
Do you know, darling? When you became involved with others you quite possibly stepped down a level or two, but If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.
Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living.