“People understand me so poorly that they don’t even understand my complaint about them not understanding me.”

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.

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

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.

Some people are just light, glow, hope; human stars.

I’m not one of those people that goes into details of my personal life on national TV to get attention. Some things are better left unsaid.

Weird people follow you in the streets, you can’t sit alone in a restaurant or a cafe and read a book in peace, and I think everybody values those moments of being alone.

9 to 5 made people aware of equal pay for equal work. It hasn’t really happened, but it has come closer.

I judge people by what they might be, – not are, nor will be.

A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don’t think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time.

Once you have people around you who don’t question you, you’re in a dangerous place.

I’m just trying to show people that I ain’t gotta ride off no movement. I can ride off myself.