“A hand cannot write on itself.”

“Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing - for life itself is a writer's love until death.”

“A poor gasping, blushing creature, with trembling knees and twitching hands, is a painful sight to every one, and if it cannot cure itself, the sooner it goes and hangs itself the better.”

“You cannot write if you do not read,” the blind man said. “You cannot eat if you do not chew. And you cannot play if you do not”—he grabbed for the boy’s hand—“listen.”

“As the variable capital always stays in the hands of the capitalist in some form or other, it cannot be claimed in any way that it converts itself into revenue for anyone.”

“The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it.”

“In writing a history of madness, Foucault has attempted-and this is the greatest merit, but also the very infeasibility of his book0to write a history of madness itself. Itself. Of madness itself. That is by letting madness speak for itself.”

“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.”

“There cannot be a secret Christian. Grace is like ointment hid in the hand; it betrayeth itself. If you truly feel the sweetness of the cross of Christ, you will be constrained to confess Christ before men.”

“The fact that you can write verse is in itself a certificate that you can write prose.”