If words are the truth, what is living for?

Be a poet in action as well as in words.

Cowardice is the fear of contradiction.

Everything an artist smells, hears, tastes, touches becomes part of his art.

Order is what exists before you start arranging things.

Freedom’s chains are the hardest to break.

Under a red desert sky all thought seems superfluous.

When a head and a wall collide it’s never the wall that breaks.

Every wars casts humanity back into the primordial slime.

Literature, the act of writing, affirms life, however dark the story it tells.

Men are always ready to fight; it’s tenderness that scares them.

Most of our cares are imaginary. We think them into existence.

A goal ensures progress. But one gets much further without a goal.

To hate everything is to be wounded by everything.

Thinking is a sign of disturbance. When your bladder doesn’t hurt you don’t think about it.

Books end. Stories never do.

The wise oyster stays in its shell.

The greatest sense is indistinguishable from the greatest nonsense.

We need a new religion, a global religion, based on one simple principle: live and let live.

Only the dying know what real loneliness is.

You don’t love someone because it’s the logical thing to do.

The only reason to take anything seriously is to make it more fun.

If you think happiness is a rare bird you won’t see much of it.

Nothing is so deceiving as knowledge.

Through the power of art imaginary landscapes turn into real ones.

Art’s aim is life, a deeper connection with life.

The familiar is by far the most beautiful.

Morality is the clipping of a bird’s wings.

Our way of thinking causes us more pain than all our misfortunes.

The world is real; philosophy is the illusion.

All the great novels are about obsession and people who are obsessed.

Out of dumbness, out of confusion, arise the true words.

It’s not the wound that teaches, but the healing.

When the meaning is unclear there is no meaning.

Life is always dangerous and always mysterious.

When people talk to themselves they should listen more. That’s how writers are born.

Behind every mask there is a face, and behind that a story.

We love those to whom we can tell our story.

Indifference to ideas is a sign of good health.

Boredom is the price one pays for not enjoying everything.

To stay sane in a mad world is the real victory.

The more idealism proves futile, the more I respect idealists.

The real geniuses are the people who love life.

It’s during a storm that the best songs get written.

One death apiece is plenty.

The best thing in life is having someone to share it with.

The craving for recognition is every artist’s Achilles heel.

Dream as much as you like, but the world is not a dream.

Relax and be free. You don’t have to prove anything.

Change is always trivial compared to what doesn’t change.