There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.
The Nobel is a ticket to one’s own funeral. No one has ever done anything after he got it.
I don’t believe one grows older. I think that what happens early on in life is that at a certain age one stands still and stagnates.
All significant truths are private truths. As they become public they cease to become truths; they become facts, or at best, part of the public character; or at worst, catchwords.
A toothache, or a violent passion, is not necessarily diminished by our knowledge of its causes, its character, its importance or insignificance.
Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.
Knowledge is invariably a matter of degree: you cannot put your finger upon even the simplest datum and say this we know.
People to whom nothing has ever happened cannot understand the unimportance of events.
April is the cruellest month.
Business today consists in persuading crowds.
The soul is so far from being a monad that we have not only to interpret other souls to ourself but to interpret ourself to ourself.
We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.
We must learn to suffer more.
We do not pass through the same door twice Or return to the door through which we did not pass.
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison.
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill.
In spite of all the dishonour, the broken standards, the broken lives, The broken faith in one place or another, There was something left that was more than the tales Of old men on winter evenings.
That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.
Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness...
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.