I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don't say what it wants to hear.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

Asleep you can experience many hours whilst only a few waking moments have passed. This is why dreams are an ideal platform for training.

When you invest your time and energy in stuff that drags you down, you die a little bit every day.

Wonder opens and unravels reality.

I find revealing the secrets of magic quite reprehensible.

Some people have youth, some have beauty – I have menace.

If I live for another ten years I shall probably have written all that I want to write.

I am always reading immoral books on the sly, and then selfishly trying to prevent other people from having the same wicked good time.

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

I'm the person with the final say on everything. I really love being in that position.

If it comes to a swinging, swing all, say I.