A. Alvarez

Despair, in short, seeks its own environment as surely as water finds its own level.

Twentieth-century art may start with nothing, but it flourishes by virtue of its belief in itself, in the possibility of control over what seems essentially uncontrollable, in the coherence of the inchoate, and in its ability to create its own values.

No one is promiscuous in his way of dying. A man who has decided to hang himself will never jump in front of a train.