To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.
If every one said orders were impossible to carry out when they were received where would you be? Where would we all be if you just said, “Impossible,” when orders came?
Though there is one part of writing that is solid and you do it no harm by talking about it, the other is fragile, and if you talk about it, the structure cracks and you have nothing.
The fact that I am interrupting serious work to answer these questions proves that I am so stupid that I should be penalized severely. I will be. Don’t worry.
The educated man is the man who can do something. The quality of his work marks the degree of his education.
No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.
I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.
Every damn thing is your own fault, if you are any good.
Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.
When you have a child, the world has a hostage.
America is the land of wide lawns and narrow minds.
The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.
In every port in the world, at least two Estonians can be found.
The smallest coffins are the heaviest.
Only that which makes you feel bad after doing is immoral.
A writer without a sense of justice or injustice would be better off editing the yearbook for a school for exceptional children.
To be able to say: I loved this person, we had a hell of a nice time together, it’s over but in a way it will never be over and I do know that I for sure loved this person, to be able to say that and mean it, that’s rare. That’s rare and valuable.
Fortunately I have never learned to take the good advice I give myself nor the counsel of my fears.
I always like it at a war. There is always the chance that you will get up the next morning and be killed and not have to write.
People fall in love, but have to climb out.