“The world needed more fireworks- especially now that there was going to be a shortage of beautiful, useless things.”

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.”

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”

“I am more aware of the world now, the tiny insignificant things especially. I am beginning to be more childlike. For an artist this may have some advantages.”

“Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either”

“Think of something useless, and that's probably what I'll be doing. Listen, Virginia, we need to love the useless. We need to raise pigeons without a thought of eating them, plant rose bushes without expecting to pick roses, write without aiming at publication. We need to do things without expecting benefits in return. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it's in the curving paths that the best things are found. . . . We must love the useless, because there is beauty in uselessness.”