I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow. He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book. It’s a misfortune that it is usually the other way round.
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.
Family life is an encroachment on private life.
Most people are sick. But only a few know that this is something they can be proud of. These are the psychoanalysts.
One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.
Most critics write critiques which are by the authors they write critiques about. That would not be so bad, but then most authorswrite works which are by the critics who write critiques about them.
This is something that I cannot get over – that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.
My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.
A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.
In a hollow head there is much room for knowledge.
A philistine is habitually bored and looks for things that won’t bore him. An artist finds things boring, but is never bored.
If by day art is in the service of business, the evenings are devoted to the businessman’s enjoyment of it. That is asking a lot of art, but art and the businessman make it work.
It is not true that one cannot live without a woman. It is simply that one cannot have lived without one.
The extraordinary ability of a woman to forget is not the same as the talent of a lady not to be able to remember.
The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.