“What we need in literature today are vast philosophic horizons; we need the most ultimate, the most fearsome, the most fearless 'Why?' and 'What next?'("Literature, Revolution, and Entropy")”

“True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.”

“But you can't plead with autumn. No. The midnight wind stalked through the woods, hooted to frighten you, swept everything away for the approaching winter, whirled the leaves. ("The North")”

“They say there is a kind of flower that blooms only once a century, Then couldn't there be one that flowers only once every thousand years - or once every ten thousand years? Maybe there are and we just don't know it because today is itself that once-in-a-thousand-year moment.”

“And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything.”

“The only reason I'm writing this down is to show how human reason, even very sharp and exact human reason, can get crazily confused and thrown off the track.”

“I am like a machine being driven to excessive rotations: the bearings are incandescing and, in a minute, melted metal will begin to drip and everything will turn to nothing. Quick: get cold water, logic. I am pouring it over myself by the bucketload but the logic sizzles on the hot bearings and dissipates elusive white steam into the air.”

“I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit. The bearings are overheating: a minute longer and the metal will melt and start dripping and that will be the end of everything. I need a splash of cold water, logic; I pour it on in buckets but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist”

“The most agonising thing is to drop doubt into a man about his being a reality, three-dimensional - and not some other kind of reality.”

“The flame will cool tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow (in the Book of Genesis days are equal to years, ages). But someone must see this already today, and speak heretically today about tomorrow. Heretics are the only (bitter) remedy against the entropy of human thought.”

“And how can there be a final revolution? There is no final one. The number of revolutions is infinite.”