Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life.
In a well-run mental household there ought to be a thorough cleaning at the threshold of consciousness a few times a year.
Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.
It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I’ve always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.
What torture, this life in society! Often someone is obliging enough to offer me a light, and in order to oblige him I have to fish a cigarette out of my pocket.
Talent is often a defect in character.
The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.
We are sacrificing ourselves for our ready-made goods; we are consumers and live in such a way that the means may consume the end.
One’s need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.
If one reads a newspaper only for information, one does not learn the truth, not even the truth about the paper. The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves; and more than that, it is an instigator.
The agitator seizes the word. The artist is seized by it.
The real truths are those that can be invented.
When I read, it is not acted literature; but what I write is written acting.
One must read all writers twice – the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.
It is regarded as normal to consecrate virginity in general and to lust for its destruction in particular.
The ultimate aim of psychoanalysis is to attribute art to mental weakness, and then to trace the weakness back to the point where, according to analytic dogma, it originated namely, the lavatory.
There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.
Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!
Sexual enlightenment is that hardhearted process which for hygienic reasons forbids young people to satisfy their curiosity themselves.
The art of an actress is sublimated sexuality. But off the stage the fire must be able to reconvert the steam into body.