confusion of aims

A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.

good prose

“Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.”

autobiography, time, space

“Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form — it may be called fleeting or eternal — is in neither case the stuff that life is made of.”

Opinions are a private matter.

“Opinions are a private matter. The public has an interest only in judgments.”

the collector’s passion

      “Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.”

genius or talent or inspiration

What Romantic terminology called genius or talent or inspiration is nothing other than finding the right road empirically, following one’s nose, taking shortcuts.

human race

The human race is a zone of living things that should be defined by tracing its confines.

forms & life of cities

The catalogue of forms is endless: until every shape has found its city, new cities will continue to be born. When the forms exhaust their variety and come apart, the end of cities begins.

declare openly

Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.