“one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.”

“One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air.”

“To find everything profound - that is an inconvenient trait. It makes one strain one's eyes all the time, and in the end one finds more than one might have wished.”

“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”

“Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.”

“But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world! Suppose that one assessed the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, put into formulas; how absurd such a 'scientific' assessment of music would be! What would one have comprehended, understood, known about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really 'music' in it!”

“Either one does not dream, or one does so interestingly. One should learn to spend one's waking life in the same way: not at all, or interestingly.”