" The first time I read this, forty-five years ago, I thought it was unspeakably brilliant and I read all the rest of Hesse's novels in one big rush. I just read it again because an English class I'm observing is discussing it. This time I found it a little wordy, a little self-indulgent. The prose has that rigid quality that you often get with translations. As short as the book is, it's too long. Siddhartha warns his friend that words are inadequate, deleterious even, for expressing deep spiritual experience. This book proves the point. "
— Paul, 1/30/2014