Is love supposed to ruin you? It seems to me you shouldn't destroy yourself out of life for purposes of love--or what good is it?
Our society like decadent Rome has turned into an amusement society with writers chief among the court jesters - not so much above the clatter as part of it.
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
What is art but a way of seeing?
Your authority and my degeneracy are one in the same.
You have to have the power to employ pain, to repent, to be illuminated, you must have the opportunity and even the time.
What this means is not a single Tower of Babel plotted in common, but hundreds of thousands of separate beginnings, the length and breadth of America. Energetic people who build against pains and unce...
He didn't ask Where will you spend eternity? as religious the-end-is-near picketers did but rather, With what, in this modern democracy, will you meet the demands of your soul?
There is no limit to the amount of intelligence invested in ignorance when the need for illusion runs deep.
We are funny creatures. We don't see the stars as they are, so why do we love them? They are not small gold objects, but endless fire.
The more south we were, the more deep a sky it seemed, till, in the Valley of Mexico, I thought it held back an element too strong for life, and that the flamy brilliance of blue stood off this menace...
How we all love extreme cases and apocalypses, fires, drownings, stranglings, and the rest of it. The bigger our mild, basically ethical, safe middle classes grow the more radical excitement is in dem...
Fantasia, fantasia, fantasia. Si trasforma in realtà. Essa sorregge, essa altera, essa redime!
Every treasure is guarded by dragons. That's how you can tell it's valuable.
Emancipation resulting in madness. Unlimited freedom to choose and play a tremendous variety of roles with a lot of coarse energy.
Some people embrace their gifts with gratitude. Others have no use for them and can think only of overcoming their weaknesses. Only their defects interest and challenge them. Thus those who hate peopl...
You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.
You can spend the entire second half of your life recovering from the mistakes of the first half.
You never know what forms self-respect will take, especially with people whose rules of life are few.
To tell the truth I never had it so good. But I lacked the strength of character to bear such joy.