"The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned."

“The basis of insincerity is the idealized image we hold of ourselves and wish to impose on others.”

“For the neurotic, the merging of the subconscious and the conscious may be risky, just as it is for the users of drugs. But for the writer who is aware of the way in which this connection exists in reality and nourishes creativity, the sooner he can achieve a synthesis among intellect, emotion, and instinct, the sooner his work will be integrated.”

“Nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a worldly way.”

“The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. Always an orchestra, and just as music traverses walls, so sensuality traverses the body and reaches up to ecstasy.”

“Passivity, like the passivity of India induced by religion, is destructive both to human life and to art.”

“Only in the fever of creation could she recreate her own lost life.”