The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading - Vladimir Nabokov

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

do what only a true artist can do ... pounce upon the forgotten butterfly of revelation

Thus it transpired that even Berlin could be mysterious. Within the linden's bloom the streetlight winks. A dark and honeyed hush envelops us. Across the curb one's passing shadow slinks: across a stump a sable ripples thus. The night sky melts to peach beyond that gate. There water gleams, there Venice vaguely shows. Look at that street — it runs to China straight, and yonder star above the Volga glows! Oh, swear to me to put in dreams your trust, and to believe in fantasy alone, and never let your soul in prison rust, nor stretch your arm and say: a wall of stone.