“Never leap into a lake without knowing what’s beneath the surface.”

“For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake
That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there
But never yet hath dipt into the abysm”

“The underground of the city is like what's underground in people. Beneath the surface, it's boiling with monsters.”

“It is useless to seek the soul of things beneath their surface, for their surface is their soul.”

“I never saw the sea.
I don't know if it's pretty,
I don't know if it's rough.
The sea doesn't matter to me.I saw the lake.
Yes, the lake.
The lake is large and also calm.The rain of colors
from the exploding afternoon
makes the lake shimmer
makes it a lake painted
by every color.
I never saw the sea.
I saw the lake ...”

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

“Our apparitions, the things you know us by, are simply childish. Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.”

“Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

“Stop being an escapist! Stop being a surface liver who stays right in the froth of the surface. There are millions of these people, and they never find anything really worthwhile. Be willing to face life squarely and get down beneath the surface of life where the verities and realities are to be found.”

“I can never drive my car over a bridge without thinking of suicide.
I can never look at a lake or an ocean without thinking of suicide.”