“I’ve dropped out of their hearts like a little sparrow fallen from its nest. So gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart – and you’ll see how nice I can be.”

I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

It’s strange. I felt less lonely when I didn’t know you.

Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.

You’re lucky. I’m always conscious of myself —in my mind. Painfully conscious.

A madman’s ravings are absurd in relation to the situation in which he finds himself, but not in relation to his madness.

It is disgusting – Why must we have bodies?

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

Hell is – other people!

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

A man is involved in life, leaves his impress on it, and outside of that there is nothing.

We are our choices.

Better a good journalist than a poor assassin.

I never could bear the idea of anyone’s expecting something from me. It always made me want to do the opposite.

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.

You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then-and only then-it is handed to you.

I desire the things that will destroy me in the end.

Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart.

Don’t feel sad over someone who gave up on you, feel sorry for them because they gave up on someone who would have never given up on them.

Having faith means keeping your heart turned to God, to His love, to His Fatherly tenderness, amid the storm.

Maybe one day we shall be glad to remember even these hardships.

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore.

I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.