The life of every citizen is becoming a business. This, it seems to me, is one of the worst interpretations of the meaning of human life history has ever seen. Man’s life is not a business.
The more realistic you are the more you threaten the grounds of your own art.
I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can’t conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.
Art is order, made out of the chaos of life.
O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.
It wasn’t that he was specially ungenerous but that he put things off to give his generosity a longer and more significant route.
Live or die but don’t poison everything.
The flesh would shrink and go, the blood would dry, but no one believes in his mind of minds or heart of hearts that the pictures do stop.
I want to tell you, don’t marry suffering. Some people do. They get married to it, and sleep and eat together, just as husband and wife. If they go with joy they think it’s adultery.
One must bear in mind the odd angle or slant that the rays of love have to take in order to reach a heart like mine.
Is love supposed to ruin you? It seems to me you shouldn’t destroy yourself out of life for purposes of love – or what good is it?
I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don’t you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.
Unless you’re completely exploded, there’s always something to be grateful for.
Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich. Don’t have a loud mouth. The more you love people the more they’ll mix you up. A child loves, a person respects. Respect is better than love.
I love solitude but I prize it most when company is available.
The terms which, in his inmost heart, each man knows. As I know mine. As all know. For that is the truth of it – that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know.
I don’t know exactly how it’s done. I let it alone a good deal.
There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it it got even stronger.
The body, she says, is subject to the force of gravity. But the soul is ruled by levity, pure.
Humankind struggles with collective powers for its freedom, the individual struggles with dehumanization for the possession of his soul.