Thomas Mann an Richard Pipes, Muskingum College, New Concord, Ohio

Über ›Tonio Kröger‹: die Geschichte, die er als junger Mann geschrieben habe, könne man sowohl als poetisches Werk, wie auch als ein Selbstbekenntnis auffassen. »When I wrote the story I did not visualize Tonio as a person standing below his two friends, but in the main as a being superior to them. He stood aloof from his friend’s simple and normal life, certainly, but he was half envious of that very life in reality. However, though this envy was tinged with regret that he was a stranger to their way of living, he was profoundly conscious of the profundity and promise of his own life as an artist.«