The drawing shows me at a glance what would be spread over ten pages in a book.

I don’t adopt any one’s ideas; I have my own.

A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence thatprinciple may be enshrined in.

You may live a long while with some people, and be on friendly terms with them, and never once speak openly with them from your soul.

Every man’s happiness is built on the unhappiness of another.

Death is like a fisherman who catches fish in his net and leaves them for a while in the water; the fish is still swimming but the net is around him, and the fisherman will draw him up—when he thinks fit.

Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man’s the workman in it.

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: Great God, grant that twice two be not four.

It is not a good thing for an artist to marry. As the ancients used to say, if you serve a Muse, you must serve her and no one else. An unhappy marriage may perhaps contribute to the development of talent, but a happy one is no good at all.

The writer must be a psychologist, but a secret one; he must sense and know the roots of phenomena, but offer only the phenomena themselves as they blossom or wither.