Favourite books, poems and quotes

Below is a list of my favourite books, a few of my favourite poems and all of my favourite quotes which have each influenced me in some way.

Favourite Quotes

NIETZSCHE We have art in order not to die of the truth. Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. ...And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter. One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art. The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. There are no facts, only interpretations. It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication. Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders? Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species. The doer alone learneth. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves. THOMAS MANN A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. One must die to life in order to be utterly a creator. Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word? Literature... is the union of suffering with the instinct for form. The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea. SARTRE Words are loaded pistols ... Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think. If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company. CAMUS A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. In order to exist just once in the world, it is necessary never again to exist. In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion. In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.