“What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?”

My melancholy is the most faithful sweetheart I have had.

What labels me, negates me.

In my great melancholy, I loved life, for I love my melancholy.

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith.

I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.

Why bother remembering a past that cannot be made into a present?

In the secretly blushing cheek is reflected the glow of the heart.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.

My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.

What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?

How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

Whenever anyone has offended me, I try to raise my soul so high that the offense cannot reach it.

I broke my own heart, hoping that you would find parts of me that you could love.

It’s no wonder we’ve always sought the sky. After all, my child, our souls were meant to fly.

A great poet to me is a person who can describe a painting in such ways that even a person with closed eyes can feel the pain of the artist.

Nothing is made from nothing.

I didn’t ask because I was afraid of the answer.

Man has always learned from past. After all, you can’t learn history in reverse.

To think? That’s it. It is thought. This alone cannot be detached from me. I am, I exist; that is certain.