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

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

Your judgement judges you and defines you.

Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

I wanted the moments of my life to follow and order themselves like those of a life remembered. You might as well try and catch time by the tail.

As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.

All men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head.

Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being – like a worm.

I have no religion, but if I were to choose one, it would be that of Shariati’s.

I’d come to realize that all our troubles spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language.

What is there to fear in such a regular world?

People who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends. I have no friends: is that why my flesh is so naked?

What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us.

Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

My eyes feel all soft, all soft as flesh. I’m going to sleep.

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.

Every man’s last day is fixed. Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, for all mankind. But by their deeds to make their fame last: that is labor for the brave.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.

You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.

Every man’s last day is fixed. Lifetimes are brief, and not to be regained, for all mankind. But by their deeds to make their fame last: that is labor for the brave.

Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.

In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.