"Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?"

"When all else fails, philosophize."

"The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do."

"(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution."

"A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us."

"His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origin of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul."

"We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable."

"Pain is truth; all else is subject to doubt."

"Perhaps; but I am a difficult person to live with. My difficulty consists in not wanting to live with other people."