If someone calls me vain and mean, I know that
he trusts me and has something to confess to
me.
I no longer have collaborators. I used to be
envious of them. They repel those readers
who I want to lose myself.
Many desire to kill me, and many wish to spend
an hour chatting with me. The law protects
me from the former.
For two weeks now I haven't heard a German
word and haven't understood an Italian one.
This way one can manage to live with people;
everything goes like clockwork and no irksome
misunderstanding can arise.
Most writers have no other quality than the
reader: taste. But the latter has the better
taste, because he does not write - and the
best if he does not read.
There are writers who can express in as little
as twenty pages what I occasionally need as
many as two for.
A Weltanschauung is a good horse. But there
is a difference between a fine equestrian and
a horse dealer.
Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the
moon while pissing on graves.
Satires which the censor understands are
rightly prohibited.
The making of a journalist: no ideas and the
ability to express them.
Psychoanalysis is that illness for which it
regards itself as therapy.
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these
lies when they see them in print.
Many of those who were full of enthusiasm
on 1 August 1914 and also had butter hoped
there would be even more butter on 1 August
1917. They can still remember the enthusiasm.
The Judas kiss which Christian civilization
gave to the human spirit was the last sexual
act it permitted.
Ingratitude is often disproportionate to the
benefaction received.
This one's on backorder from the University
of Chicago Press.
