“The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesn't make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.”

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.”

“It took the Metropolitan Museum of Art nearly 50 years to wake up to Pablo Picasso. It didn't own one of his paintings until 1946, when Gertrude Stein bequeathed that indomitable quasi-Cubistic picture of herself - a portrait of the writer as a sumo Buddha - to the Met, principally because she disliked the Museum of Modern Art.”

“It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.”

“Very likely education does not make very much difference.”

“Every adolescent has that dream every century has that dream every revolutionary has that dream, to destroy the family.”

“It is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.”

“Counting is the religion of this generation it is its hope and its salvation.”

“It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.”

“In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody.”

“An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.”