“One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh.”

— Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf (1927), p. 218

About Hermann Hesse

1877 – 1962

German-Swiss novelist and poet, Nobel laureate in Literature (1946), author of "Siddhartha" and "Steppenwolf".

“Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”

“Oh, love isn't there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.”

“I have never lost the feeling of contradiction that lies behind all knowledge.”

“Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.”

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.”

“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.”

“The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day.”

“Give thyself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.”