We have long become overgrown with calluses; we no longer hear people being killed. ("X")

We comes from God, I from the Devil.

The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)

The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense. ("The North")

Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.

Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

Literature is painting, architecture, and music.

There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

We need writers who fear nothing. ("Our Goal")

To work best democracy needs a diversity of thoughts, ideas and expression. This is only possible with freedom and civility.

I have the greatest sympathy with the growth of the socialist party. I think they understand the evils that surround us and hammer them into people's minds better than we Liberals.

I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.

In the end nobody knows how it's done — how art is made. It can't be explained. Optical devices are just tools. Understanding a tool doesn't explain the magic of creation. Nothing can.

Once you get hooked on the airline business, it's worse than dope.

Fear and love can never be experienced at the same time. It is always our choice as to which of these emotions we want.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

No power on earth, however, can abolish the merciless class distinction between those who are physically desirable and the lonely, pallid, spotted, silent, unfancied majority.

You have to make thousands and thousands of drawings before an illustration is perfected.

If we can't get more John Rovnaks in this world, let's all support the John Rovnak we've got.