Modern literature seduces with insults, riddles, and inside stories.
The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.
Stated clearly enough, an idea may cancel itself out.
Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.
Old and young disbelieve one another's truths.
Never try to leap from a standstill.
My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.
Malice is always authentic and sincere.
Logic and fact keep interfering with the easy flow of conversation.
Listening to people keeps them entertained.
Kafka: cries of helplessness in twenty powerful volumes.
First literature came to refer only to itself, the literary theory.
Families in which nothing is ever discussed usually have a lot not to discuss.
Most reputations are not ruined but forgotten.
Fulfillment is often more trouble than it is worth.
An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.
The higher the moral tone, the more suspect the speaker.
In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words.
Money is to my social existence what health is to my body.
The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind.
Rescue someone unwilling to look after himself, and he will cling to you like a dangerous illness.
If the world would apologize, I might consider a reconciliation.
Women encourage men to be childish, then scold them.
In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.
If we think about the obvious long enough, it dissolves.
I'm being treated like a sex object, cried the lady. No matter. I will take care of it, said Time soothingly.
Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.
Office politics are bloody-minded, but weak on content.
For many, immaturity is an ideal, not a defect.
Literature may be false, but it is not trivial.
The desire to create literature leads to frights, grunts, and coy looks.
Let's have some good, old-fashioned literature, with a virgin and a moral.
Literature gives us a memory of lives we did not lead.
Outside literature, high-flown sentiments are merely exasperating.
Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.
If modesty disappeared, so would exhibitionism.
I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.
I have learned to keep to myself how exceptional I am.
I did not know I was in my prime until afterwards.
Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.
Events are called inevitable only after they have occurred.
Death is frightening, and so is Eternal Life.
Critic's delight: scolding the Mighty Dead.
A real idea keeps changing and appears in many places.
A blunt statement can be as false as any other.
Well-behaved: he always speaks as if his mother might be listening.
The beginning of self-knowledge: recognizing that your motives are the same as other people's.
Romantics consider common sense vulgar.
Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.
It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.
My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.
Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.
Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.
Don't stare into a mirror when you are trying to solve a problem.
At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.
Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.
The passions are the same in every conflict, large or small.
Worried about being a dull fellow? You might develop your talent for being irritating.
Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.
Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little.
Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.
Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.
I love you is the inscription on Pandora's box.
We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.
In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.
Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder.
Complainers change their complaints, but they never reduce the amount of time spent in complaining.
Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.
If I play hard to get, soon the phone stops ringing altogether.
Good parties create a temporary youthfulness.
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.
No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime.
Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.
Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.
Few artists can afford artistic temperament.
Lust and greed are more gullible than innocence.
Writers mean more than they say and say more than they mean.
Mistakes are the only universal form of originality.
Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.
Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.