“Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them.”

Nature’s silence is its one remark, and every flake of world is a chip off that old mute and immutable block.

At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening.

The world knew you before you knew the world.

Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery.

The secret is not to write about what you love best, but about what you, alone, love at all.

These are our few live seasons. Let us live them as purely as we can, in the present.

The extravagant gesture is the very stuff of creation.

I break up through the skin of awareness a thousand times a day, as dolphins burst through seas, and dive again, and rise, and dive.

I come down to the water to cool my eyes. But everywhere I look I see fire; that which isn’t flint is tinder, and the whole world sparks and flames.

Every live thing is a survivor on a kind of extended emergency bivouac.

You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time…give it, give it all, give it now.

People love pretty much the same things best. A writer looking for subjects inquires not after what he loves best, but after what he alone loves at all.

Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be in itself a power.

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

Policies change, and programs change, according to time but objective never changes.

Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.

Vitality and beauty are gifts of Nature for those who live according to its laws.

Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine