“Child, you suffer from an excess of great stupidity or great bravery. I'm not sure which.”

“The tension of the soul in unhappiness, which cultivates its strength; its horror at the sight of the great destruction; its inventiveness and bravery in bearing, enduring, interpreting, exploiting unhappiness, and whatever in the way of depth, mystery, mask, spirit, cleverness, greatness the heart has been granted - has it not been granted them through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?”

“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

“All difficult things in the world are sure to arise from a previous state in which they were easy, and all great things from one in which they were small.”

“The Great Zaganza said: "You are very fat and stupid and persistently wear a ridiculous hat which you should be ashamed of.”

“They thought I suffered from lack of exterior, when I suffered from excess of interior”