No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

There is an incompatibility between literary creation and political activity.

It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.

Writing a book is a very lonely business. You are totally cut off from the rest of the world, submerged in your obsessions and memories.

If you are killed because you are a writer, that's the maximum expression of respect, you know.

Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty.

Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship: that is what is at stake in these elections.

No matter how ephemeral it is, a novel is something, while despair is nothing.

Since it is impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent, dream and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has become literary.

Prosperity or egalitarianism - you have to choose. I favor freedom - you never achieve real equality anyway: you simply sacrifice prosperity for an illusion.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Maintain democracy or go to dictatorship that is what is at stake in these elections.

The secret to a masterpiece is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. Is there any need to choose between them?

Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

With optimism, you look upon the sunny side of things. People say, 'Studs, you're an optimist.' I never said I was an optimist. I have hope because what's the alternative to hope? Despair? If you have despair, you might as well put your head in the oven.

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.

Law is born from despair of human nature.

If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, and constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind's best thoughts, and my soul's triumph over the powers of darkness.

Her pupils were at once her salvation and her despair. They gave her the means of supporting life, but they made life hardly worth supporting.

It is not enough to tackle the mechanics of terror organizations. We must also tackle the situations that create terrorists. We desperately need to address the frustration, the loss and the despair that drive some to these actions.

Los Angeles was an impression of failure, of disappointment, of despair, and of oddly makeshift lives. This is California? I thought.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

Melancholy and sadness are the start of doubt... doubt is the beginning of despair; despair is the cruel beginning of the differing degrees of wickedness.

God gave you not a spirit of faithlessness, not a spirit of despair.

If you don't love it, you can't suffer thru all the despair that comes with it. Keep doing it because you love it.

The denial of our duty to act in this case is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed the white slaves of the North, for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes.

Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.

Action is the antidote to despair.

Literature has been the salvation of the damned, literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair and can perhaps in this case save the world.

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.

There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.

Debauchery is perhaps an act of despair in the face of infinity.

Uncertainty! fell demon of our fears! The human soul that can support despair, supports not thee.

When too many Americans don't vote or participate, some see apathy and despair. I see disappointment and even outrage. And I believe that out of this frustration can come hope and action.

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.

In Hanover Park they highlighted the terrible plight of backyard dwellers and the fact that year after year nothing has been done to help you: the hope and despair you all live with every day.

The best I can say is that it's better for me to write about despair and darkness than to be incapable of getting off the sofa. It's better to write about suicide than to contemplate it too heavily.

When you get to know me, I don't despair - I just get up, clean up, and start again.

Because thou must not dream, thou need not despair.

Therefore, let us not despair, but instead, survey the position, consider carefully the action we must take, and then address ourselves to our common task in a mood of sober resolution and quiet confidence, without haste and without pause.

Sad Patience, too near neighbour to despair.

The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.