“One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.”

“And our latest project was Death. It’s one of the hard ones—one of the big ones, too, I suspect. Possibly it may even become the attribute that’s going to define the Creation for the Created: If not for Death, they’d be content to simply exist, but with Death, well, their lives will have meaning—a boundary beyond which the living cannot cross...”

“The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretence of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.”

“It was not pleasant to admit what one is willing to do to go on living.”

“One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.”

“Still, no matter how commonplace, one’s death is the most interesting event of one’s life.”

“The phrase, "One dies before one has lived."”

“What one does in one's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.”

“What a great thing, to be loved! What a greater thing still, to love! The heart becomes heroic though passion…if no one loved, the sun would go out.”

“This is the universe! And I'm placing stones one by one on that. Like I'm increasing the number of stars one by one… I'm making the universe. It's like I'm a God. I'm going to become a God! On this Go Board.”