Passing beneath the dance hall, thinking again of this book, I realized suddenly that our life had come to an end: I realized that the book I was planning was nothing more than a tomb in which to bury...
We should read to give our souls a chance to luxuriate.
What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it?
يدهمنا اليأس فنتحول إلى الكتب، ونضع ثقتتا في المؤلفين، فنلجأ إلى الأحلام.
Whoever, through too great love, which is monstrous after all, dies of his misery, is born again to know neither love nor hate, but to enjoy. And this joy of living, because it is unnaturally acquired...
When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or...
There’s something depraved about screwing a woman who doesn’t give a fuck about it. It heats your blood… And then, after a moment’s meditation— Can you imagine what she’d be like if she had any feelin...
There are people who cannot resist the desire to get into a cage with wild beasts and be mangled.
The most difficult adjustment an expatriate has to make, on returning to his native land, is in this realm of conversation. The impression one has, at first, is that there is no conversation. We do no...
The city grows like a cancer; I must grow like a sun. The city eats deeper and deeper into the red; it is an insatiable white louse which must die eventually of inanition. I am going to starve the whi...
Sweet or bitter, I am now convinced that all experience is enriching and rewarding. Above all, instructive.
Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
Still I can't get it out of my mind what a discrepancy there is between ideas and living. A permanent dislocation, though we try to cover the two with a bright awning. And it won't go. Ideas have to b...
Perhaps my grandfather was right, perhaps I was spoiled in the bud by the books I read. But it is ages since books have claimed me. For a long time now I have practically ceased to read. But the taint...
People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes out, but you can’t permanently get deloused. Everywhere I go, people are making...
Paris is like a whore. From a distance she seems ravishing, you can't wait until you have her in your arms. And five minutes later you feel empty, disgusted with yourself. You feel tricked.
Over there you think of nothing but becoming President of the United States some day. Potentially every man is Presidential timber. Here it's different. Here every man is potentially a zero. If you be...
Only a rich cunt can save me now,' he says with an air of utmost weariness. 'One gets tired of chasing after new cunts all the time. It gets mechanical. The trouble is, you see, I can't fall in love....
Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am.
If we are always arriving and departing, it is alsotrue that we are eternally anchored. One's destinationis never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.