I believe in the salvation of humanity, in the future of cyanide...
I am the beast with a contorted grin, contracting down to illusion and dilating toward infinity, both growing and dying, delightfully suspended between hope for nothing and despair of everything, brou...
If there is anyone who owes everything to Bach, it is certainly God.
The cynicism of utter solitude is a calvary relieved by insolence.
The more we frequent men, the blacker our thoughts; and when, to clarify them, we return to our solitude, we find there the shadow they have cast.
I foresee the day when we shall read nothing but telegrams and prayers.
That there should be a reality hidden behind appearances is, after all, quite possible; that language might render such a thing would be an absurd hope.
Tolerance cannot seduce the young.
The sense that everything is going wrong has existed in every era, and rightly so since men have found no greater pleasure than in inventing new ways to make each other miserable.
One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language. That is our country, our fatherland - and no other.
It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: In truth it is itself the quintessence of injustice.
For the normal man, life is an undisputed reality; only the sick man is delighted by life and praises it so that he won't collapse.
Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.
Whenever I happen to be in a city of any size, I marvel that riots do not break out everyday: Massacres, unspeakable carnage, a doomsday chaos. How can so many human beings coexist in a space so confi...
The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.
Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection. This is why with Chopin we feel so little like gods.
I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any moti...
By all evidence we are in the world to do nothing.
I would like to explode, flow, crumble into dust, and my disintegration would be my masterpiece.
Compassion is a sign of superficiality: broken destinies and unrelenting misery either make you scream or turn you to stone.