Every Word Wants To Be Taken Literally,

A Particularly Fine Head On A Man Usually Means That He Is Stupid; Particularly Deep Philosophers Are Usually Shallow Thinkers; In Literature, Talents Not Much Above The Average Are Usually Regarded By Their Contemporaries As Geniuses.

We Sometimes Have A Flash Of Understanding That Amounts To The Insight Of Genius, And Yet It Slowly Withers, Even In Our Hands - Like A Flower. The Form Remains, But The Colours And The Fragrance Are Gone.

... The Novel Is Called Upon Like No Other Art Form To Incorporate The Intellectual Content Of An Age.

Hardly Anyone Still Reads Nowadays. People Make Use Of The Writer Only In Order To Work Off Their Own Excess Energy On Him In A Perverse Manner, In The Form Of Agreement Or Disagreement.

Writing [for The Novelist] Is Not An Activity, But A Condition. That Is Why One Simply Can't Resume The Work When One Has A Job And A Free Half-day. Reading Is The Conveyance Of This Condition.