“It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best expressed in prose.”

Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them.

In life it is more necessary to lose than to gain. A seed will only germinate if it dies.

He realised, more vividly than ever before, that art had two constant, two unending preoccupations: it is always meditating upon death and it is always thereby creating life.

And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?

Mother Russia is on the move, she can’t stand still, she’s restless and can’t find rest, she’s talking and she can’t stop.

As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.

How wonderful to be alive, he thought. But why does it always hurt?

If it’s so painful to love and absorb electricity, how much more painful it is to be a woman, to be the electricity, to inspire love.

They don’t ask much of you. They only want you to hate the things you love and to love the things you despise.

Oh, what a love it was, utterly free, unique, like nothing else on earth! Their thoughts were like other people’s songs.

Immensely grateful, touched, proud, astonished, abashed.

Only the solitary seek the truth, and they break with all those who don’t love it sufficiently.

The whole wide world is a cathedral; I stand inside, the air is calm, And from afar at times there reaches My ear the echo of a psalm.

We must discover security within ourselves.

That’s metaphysics, my dear fellow. It’s forbidden me by my doctor, my stomach won’t take it.

I’ve come to realize that I perform best when I’m letting my subconscious mind hit the ball and my conscious mind is otherwise occupied.

If I’m fighting the best, then I can inspire a younger generation. I walk into the gyms and see girls boxing. They say I’m their inspiration. I love that.

The Velez fight wasn’t my best.

Carl Yastrzemski was the best all-around player. He could run, throw and hit. He had the ability to play a number of different positions.

But adult love means you’re not in denial, and you want the loved one to be the best they can be.

Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.

Yet pleasure in the work can’t be achieved unless you know you have put all of your strength into it and have done your best to make it come alive.

Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages.