Quotes by writer

"The important thing is to strive toward a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit."

"The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth."

"People have stars, but they aren't the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they're nothing but tiny lights. And for still others, for scholars, they're problems... But all those stars are silent stars. You, though, you'll have stars like nobody else... since I'll be laughing on one of them, for you it'll be as if all the stars are laughing. You'll have stars that can laugh!... and it'll be as if I had given you, instead of stars, a lot of tiny bells that know how to laugh."

"To grasp the meaning of the world of today we use a language created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past seems to us nearer our true natures, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language."

"To live is to be slowly born."

"If you want to build a boat, do not instruct the men to saw wood, stitch the sails, prepare the tools and organize the work, but make them long for setting sail and travel to distant lands."

"I'll look as if I'm dead, and that won't be true.' I said nothing. 'You understand. It's too far. I can't take this body with me. It's too heavy.' I said nothing. 'But it'll be like an old abandoned shell. There's nothing sad about an old shell...' I said nothing. 'It'll be nice, you know. I'll be looking at the stars, too. All the stars will be wells with a rusty pulley. All the stars will pour out water for me to drink...' I said nothing. 'And it'll be fun! You'll have five-hundred million little bells; I'll have five-hundred million springs of fresh water...' And he, too, said nothing more."

"Man is, above all, he who creates."

"War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus."

"The one thing that matters is the effort."