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

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.

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.

There is no human nature, since there is no god to conceive it.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

The consciousness that says ‘I am’ is not the consciousness that thinks.

He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end.

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

Just take what you need from the ladies and leave them.

Let go of what let go of you-make room for what seeks to be held.

How wide are you willing to open your mind for me. I’d like to leave pieces of me everywhere.

Don’t let them take a piece of you when they leave.

Physical violence is inflicted with weapons, but emotional violence is inflicted with words; words can leave invisible scars that can take years, or even lifetimes, to heal.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it better not come at all.

Just take what you need from the ladies and leave them.