“Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don’t have a passport.”

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

People are far more sincere and good-humored at speeding their parting guests than on meeting them.

Life on earth is inconceivable without trees.

Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.

Women can’t forgive failure.

The secret of boring people lies in telling them everything.

What a delight it is to respect people!

If you ever have need of my life, come and take it.

It’s very hard, feeling that you’re no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.

This life of ours, human life is like a flower gloriously blooming in a meadow: along comes a goat, eats it up–no more flower.

Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit.

Do you see that tree? It is dead but it still sways in the wind with the others. I think it would be like that with me. That if I died I would still be part of life in one way or another.

Write only of what is important and eternal.

If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter

Only one who loves can remember so well.

There should be more sincerity and heart in human relations, more silence and simplicity in our interactions. Be rude when you’re angry, laugh when something is funny, and answer when you’re asked.

I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralysed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something – a great deal – to do with how we live our lives and whom we end up speaking with and hearing.

Every true American likes to think in terms of thousands and millions. The word ‘million’ is probably the most pleasure-giving vocable in the language.

I always feel like I don’t know how to express myself. I need to be with people that understand my language.

People need realness, reality. People can sense when someone is being pretentious or fake. It’s because you feel it; you see it in someone’s body language.

No one sleeps in this room without the dream of a common language.

What I search for continuously in my art is adequate language, language I hope can stand beyond any particular occasion.

I believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something – a great deal – to do with how we live our lives.

Or those who still believe that language is ‘only words’ and that an old language is good enough for our descriptions of the world we are trying to transform.