As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.
America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.
For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.
I used to think a bird couldn’t fly if its wings got wet.
We are swimming on the face of time and all else has drowned, is drowning, or will drown.
My hunger and curiosity drive me forward in all directions at once.
There is nothing in itself which is wrong or evil not even murder.
Jump off. You are a protected individual. Do not fear.
It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites.
Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It’s a sort of spiritual clap, I should say.
Man has demonstrated that he is master of everything – except his own nature.
Your nearness is the nearness of planets. I am the void between you. If I withdraw there will be no void for you to swim in.
Everything was for tomorrow, but tomorrow never came. The present was only a bridge and on this bridge they are still groaning, as the world groans, and not one idiot ever thinks of blowing up the bridge.
The cancer of time is eating us away.
Life, as it is called, is for most of us one long postponement.
Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks – admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve.
The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.
A world without hope, but no despair.
Man, as man, has never realized himself. The greater part of him, his potential being, has always been submerged. What is history if not the endless story of his repeated failures?
I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.