“I think that I am here, on this earth, to present a report on it, but to whom I don’t know. As if I were sent so that whatever takes place has meaning because it changes into memory.”

Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.

When I curse Fate, it’s not me, but the earth in me.

The soul exceeds its circumstances.

Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.

Irony is the glory of slaves.

The partition separating life from death is so tenuous. The unbelievable fragility of our organism suggests a vision on a screen: a kind of mist condenses itself into a human shape, lasts a moment and scatters.

The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason. The passionless cannot change history.

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.

It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.

We have become indifferent to content, and react, not even to form, but to technique, to technical efficiency itself.

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A sponge, suffering because it cannot saturate itself; a river, suffering because reflections of clouds and trees are not clouds and trees.

Be young forever, seasons of the earth.

Language is the only homeland.

Do you know how it is when one wakes at night suddenly and asks, listening to the pounding heart: what more do you want, insatiable?

Nothing endures but change.

Souls never die, but always on quitting one abode pass to another. All things change, nothing perishes.

I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.

Every single problem is a gift that changes you for the good.

The way of love is the way of no-expectation. Love exists only when there is a total acceptance and no desire to change anything.

People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument.

There is nothing permanent except change.

I am invariably late for appointments – sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.