"The truth is always an abyss. One must — as in a swimming pool — dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again — laughing and fighting for breath — to the now doubly illuminated surface of things."
"He is terribly afraid of dying because he hasn’t yet lived."
"We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes."
"Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self."
"I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man."
"We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt."