"For those who are willing to make an effort, great miracles and wonderful treasures are in store."

"What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it."

"The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance."

"If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet."

"I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books."

"More people should read books. It's the most concentrated experience you can have."

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."

"I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall."