Anthony Marais Quotes

We are not born with a need for knowledge, but a hunger for it. Eve bit the apple and it has been gluttony ever since.

Is it not ignorance that we share? A lie takes two. The truth we find alone.

Race should be seen in one way, and one way only: on your marks, get set, go!

Infatuation is measured in pleasure. Love is measured in pain. Behold the value of pain!

Wisdom doesn’t come only from the experience you have had, but from the experience you have chosen not to have.

To imagine the world without gods and religion is reasonable enough; to imagine mankind without them is an entirely different matter.

Stereotypes are based on the idea that two heads are bigger than one.

The key to writing is something to be stolen. How else does one open the door to a house of thieves?

Novelty does not require intelligence, but ignorance, which is why the young excel in this branch.

To measure up takes skill, but to err is an art.

No philosopher was ever apathetic. If there is no love, it is not philosophy.

We would like to think of death as a release from the pressures of existence, but this is a fatally mistaken thought: it is the ultimate culmination of those pressures.

There is nothing more blinding than having seen the light, and nothing more tiresome than sharing it.

Words are a means to an end. Those who chase after them inevitably fail to reach that end.

If an artist wants to be original, he should not look to art for inspiration, for art seeks its model in life, not art—and only life is rich enough to simulate originality.

We are all born wise. Unfortunately, we all don’t die that way.

Proximity to reality induces feelings of emptiness, horror and depression. Do not approach it alone.

Contemplation and writing demand solitude, which leads to a sorry feeling of isolation and detachment. Writers try to call their loneliness genius, and the world believes them most of the time.

If one chews a problem over long enough, it becomes apparent that the jaw is aching, and what started as weighing heavy on the heart ends up a pain in the neck.

Many humans make the mistake of fighting for race when it’s the species driving our genes. And there is only one weapon to fight for species: the brain.

Just because one is born in sin is no reason to brag about it.

Writers are compulsive liars desperately trying to tell themselves the truth.

Writers are liars trying to come clean. That’s why the best ones are the most tragic.

It is said that the depressive has a clearer view of reality than does the euphoric. Perhaps, but the euphoric has a clearer view of life.

Literature is the product of a deep-seated need for honesty. Hence, those who lie most are struck most deeply by it, and those who are honest have no need for it.