Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions - it's like a dream.

The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison.

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.

If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man ... just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he's a good man.

Learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever.

People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.

It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool's paradise.

Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.

I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

Don’t be overwise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid - the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again.

The most offensive is not their lying - one can always forgive lying - lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth - what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.

It takes me three or four years to research and write each book and the individual stories stay with you for a long time afterwards.

If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains.

Let guilty men remember, their black deeds Do lean on crutches made of slender reeds.

As an artist, I think you always have to take care of yourself as a person probably even more than the average person because your body is so important to your art.

Successful couples love each other with complete devotion

I am ashes where once I was fire.

That's the whole story of my life: frustration. It's a chronic disease, and it's incurable.

Never give up; nothing is done overnight. Anyone who achieved anything in life always did it after many failures. Don’t give up hope.

Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring.

That's the new picture of the good life that I want to paint - living the way that God created us to live. That's what the good life is.