Pain, sorrow, ignorance are all illusory; they cannot live. Bliss, joy, knowledge are true; they cannot die.
It's inspiration that counts, not the drill.
I don't want words that other people have invented. All the words are other people's inventions. I want my own stuff, my own rhythm, and vowels and consonants too, matching the rhythm and all my own.
We should burn all libraries and allow to remain only that which everyone knows by heart. A beautiful age of the legend would then begin.
What is generally termed reality is, to be precise, a frothy nothing.
Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlemen, is a public concern of the first importance.
No such thing as humanity without flaws.
A finer body of men has never been gathered by any nation than the men who have done the work of building the Panama Canal; the conditions under which they have lived and have done their work have been better than in any similar work ever undertaken in the tropics; they have all felt an eager pride in their work; and they have made not only America but the whole world their debtors by what they have accomplished.
The manner in which one loses the battle can sometimes outshine the victory.
There cannot be any form unless it is the result of force and matter; and all combinations must dissolve.
There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up.