“I'm a cage, in search of a bird.”

“I am a cage, in search of a bird.”

“You're not cross with me, though?" he said. She pulled her hand away and answered, "No, no, I'm never cross with anyone.”

“I had to arrange things as well as I could. That's obviously a very bad place for the bed, in front of the door. For instance when the judge I'm painting at present comes he always comes through the door by the bed, and I've even given him a key to this door so that he can wait for me here in the studio when I'm not home. Although nowadays he usually comes early in the morning when I'm still asleep. And of course, it always wakes me up when I hear the door opened beside the bed, however fast asleep I am. If you could hear the way I curse him as he climbs over my bed in the morning you'd lose all respect for judges. I suppose I could take the key away from him but that'd only make things worse. It only takes a tiny effort to break any of the doors here off their hinges.”

“The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired. Only after death, only in solitude, does a man’s true nature emerge. In death, as on the chimney sweep’s Saturday night, the soot gets washed from his body.”

“Theoretically there is a perfect possibility of happiness: believing in the indestructible element in oneself and not striving towards it.”

“But questions that don’t answer themselves at the very moment of their asking are never answered.”