A book is a companion that never flatters you, a friend that never turns from you, and a comrade that never tires of you.

The best speech is that which is brief and hits the mark.

All art is but imitation of nature.

The beginning is the most important part of any work.

The trap exists for the sake of the fish; once you have the fish, forget the trap. Words exist for the sake of meaning; once you grasp the meaning, forget the words.

If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.

Beauty will save the world.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance.

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

As a day well spent brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings a happy death.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

There are only two things worth aiming for, good music and a clean conscience.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.