“Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the world of art.”

The principal thing in this world is to keep one’s soul aloft.

I spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon removing it.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.

It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.

I don’t believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

The most important thing in the world is to hold your soul aloft.

Through small apertures we glimpse abysses whose sombre depths turn us faint. And yet over the whole there hovers an extraordinary tenderness.

To get something in these hands, I have to fight a horrible fight. But… there’s not much time to grab the things you want with your hands. Why is that? And more importantly what is that I want?

It’s such a fraught and exciting and kind of horrible time.

I think it’s so much fun to create a space. As the world has gotten more and more hectic – with these horrible catastrophes [happening] – people are going out less, ordering in, [having guests over]. People love to be in their homes.

It’s not that I succeed, it’s that everyone else has to fail, horribly, preferably in front of their parents.

I find that more and more I’m trying to entertain myself when I’m working, because I know the work’s going to go to a horrible place.

Your thoughts should agree with your words, and the words should agree with your actions. In this world people think one thing, say another thing, and do something else. This is horrible. This is crookedness.

It is difficult batting in artificial light with a red ball but it’s a horrible task for umpires to make a judgment.

I hope that you never will, but, since you’re a person, and therefore prone to making horrible, soul-splitting mistakes