“When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.”

“But Zarathustra made it clear in which direction the answer lay; it is towards the artist-psychologist, the intuitional thinker. There are very few such men in the world's literature; the great artists are not thinkers, the great thinkers are seldom artists.”

“The art of compromise centers on the willingness to give up something in order to get something else in return. Successful artists get more than they give up.”

“The great artists and thinkers are simplifiers.”

“The Pythagoreans thought those who teach for the sake of reward show themselves worse than sculptors, or artists who perform the work sitting. For these, when someone orders wood to make a statue of Hermes, search for wood suited to receive the proper form; while those pretend that they can readily produce the works of virtue from every nature.”

“It's easier to start over than to work to make something last.”

“The absence of pain means death, so when something no longer bothers you, you've died to that thing.”

“The nature of the world is that when we create something, we often destroy something else in the process.”

“The artist tries to see what there is to be interested in… He has not created something, he has seen something.”

“A person likes to think of himself in a certain way, and when something happens that makes that no longer possible, you mourn the old self. The person you thought you were.”